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§  |JL  1     |L±^ 


IMPRESSIONS  OF 
JAPANESE  ARCHITECTURE 


IMPRESSIONS  OF 

JAPANESE 
ARCHITECTURE 

AND 
THE   ALLIED    ARTS 

BY 
RALPH   ADAMS    CRAM 

Fettow  of  the  American  Institute  of  Architects 

Member  of  the  Society  of  Arts,  London 
Fellow  of  the  Royal  Geographical  Society 


I 


THE  BAKER  &  TAYLOR  COMPANY,  Publishers 
33-37  EAST  17TH  ST.,  UNION  SQUARE  NORTH,  NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  1905,  by 
THE  BAKER  &  TAYLOR  COMPANY 


Published,  September,  1905 


The  Plimpton  Press  Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


Architecture  fc 
Urban  PlanniK 
Librsry 


To  MT  WIFE 

In  Grateful  Acknowledgement  of  Inspiration, 
Guidance  and  Correction. 


AUTHOR'S   NOTE 

OF  the  ten  papers  that  together  make 
up  this  series  of  impressions  of  the 
esthetic  voicing  of  Japanese  civilization,  five 
have  been  printed  before,  one  is  a  paper 
read  before  the  Boston  Society  of  Arts  and 
Crafts,  while  four  are  now  published  for  the 
first  time.  For  the  privilege  of  reprinting 
these  five  chapters,  the  acknowledgments 
of  the  author  are  due  to  the  editors  of  the 
Architectural  Review  (Boston),  The  Church- 
man (New  York),  The  Architectural  Review 
(London),  and  House  and  Garden  (Phila- 
delphia). 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    THE  GENIUS  OF  JAPANESE  ART  ...  15 

II    THE  EARLY  ARCHITECTURE  OF  JAPAN    .  25 

III  THE  LATER  ARCHITECTURE  OF  JAPAN    .  46 

IV  TEMPLES  AND  SHRINES 71 

V    TEMPLE  GARDENS        103 

VI    DOMESTIC  INTERIORS 115 

VII    THE  MINOR  ARTS 143 

VIII    A  COLOUR  PRINT  OF  YEIZAN        .     .     .  166 

IX    A  NOTE  ON  JAPANESE  SCULPTURE    .     .  190 

X    THE  FUTURE  OF  JAPANESE  ART  204 


Vll 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Dai-butsu  of  Kamakura    ....  Frontispiece 

PLATE                                                                                             FACING  PAGE 

I    Lord  Fuji 20 

II     The  Monastery  of  Horiuji  ....  28 

III  The  Pagoda  of  Horiuji         ....  30 

IV  The  Kondo,  Horiuji  Elevation        .      .  33 
Va&V&    Section    and     Elevation     of    Pagoda, 

Horiuji 34 

VI    Yakushiji  Pagoda 37 

VII     Ho-o-do,  Uji         40 

VIII     Sanctuary  of  the  Ho-o-do    ....  42 

IX     Kinkakuji,  Kyoto 50 

X     An  example  of  curve  composition        .  52 

XI     Nikko  Gate 54 

XII     An  Interior  Nikko 56 

XIII  A  Yashiki  Gate 58 

XIV  The  Royal  Palace,  Kyoto    ....  60 
XV     Kumamoto  Castle 63 

XVI     Hikone  Castle 64 

XVII     A  Contemporary  Shinto  Shrine       .      .  87 

ix 


Illustrations 

PLATE  FACING  PAGE 

XVIII    ATorii 88 

XIX  Type  of  Revived  Enryaku         .      .  93 

XX    Kasuga  Gate,  Nara 94 

XXI  Interior  of  Chion-in  Kyoto        .      .  97 

XXII  A  Buddhist  High-Altar        ...  99 

XXIII  Before  the  Shrine  of  lyeasu.      .      .  100 

XXIV    At  Shiogama        103 

XXV  In  the  Forest  of  Nara     ....  104 

XXVI    Narita  Steps 106 

XXVII  The  Garden  of  Ishi-yama    ...  108 

XXVIII  a    Koshoji  Gate,  Uji 110 

XXVIII  b  A  Monastery  Garden,  Kyoto    .      .110 

XXIX  a  The  Fore-court,  Koshoji      ...  112 

XXIX  b    Koshoji  Garden 112 

XXX  Wood,  plaster,  rice-paper,  and  straw  120 

XXXI    A  Yashiki  Gate 122 

XXXII    Thelri-kawa 124 

XXXIII  A  Modern  Zashiki  or  Parlour  .     .  127 

XXXIV  Tokonoma  and  Chigai-dana      .      .  128 
XXXV  A  Stately  Tokonoma      ....  130 

XXXVI  A  Domestic  Interior        ....  133 

XXXVII  A  Modern  State  Apartment  in  the 

Palace  Style 134 

XXXVIII  Hotel  Galleries  137 


Illustrations 

PLATE                                                                                            FACING  PAGE 

XXXIX  The  Shukinro,  Nagoya        ...  138 

XL  A  "Tea-house" 140 

XLI  A  Farmhouse 142 

XLII  A  Colour-print  of  Yeizan     ...  176 

XLIII  Korean  Statue,  Nara      ....  190 

XLIV  An  Armida  of  the  Seventh  Century  192 

XLV  A  Seventh  Century  Bhodisatwa      .  194 

XLVIo  A  God  of  War 197 

XL VI 6  A  Sculptured  Guardian        ...  197 

XLVII  The  Incarnation  of  Power  .  198 


XLVIIIa  A  Portrait  Bust 

XLVIII6  A  Buddhist  Priest          Between 

XLIXa  A  Young  Daimyo  Pages 

XLIX6  An  Hieratic  Figure 

La&L6  Two  Priestly  Portraits  f  Between 

LI  a  &  LI  6  Ni-o  from  Kofukuji  Pages 


200 
200 
200 
201 
202 
203 


LII    A  Vision  of  Fujiyama    .     .     .     .212 


Impressions 

of 
Japanese  Architecture 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  GENIUS  OF  JAPANESE  ART 


THE  title  of  this  chapter  is  ambi- 
tious and  perhaps  misleading.  I 
have  no  intention  of  trying  to  express  in 
a  few  phrases  the  essence  of  the  esthetic 
manifestation  of  a  great  people,  but  rather 
to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that,  in  the 
ultimate  winnowing,  the  essential  residuum 
is  to  Occidental  hands  impalpable.  We 
may  look  at,  and  speak  of,  and  think  about 
the  art  of  Japan,  but  we  can  never  reduce 
it  to  a  chronological  list  and  a  table  of 
[15] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

formulae,  as  is  our  wont  with  the  art  of 
our  own  West. 

Somewhere,  somewhen,  two  roads  diverged 
in  the  immemorial  past,  and  they  struck  out  in 
opposite  directions,  losing  themselves  in  the 
jungle  of  the  unachieved.  A  race,  till  then 
united,  then  divided,  the  half  to  the  east,  the 
half  to  the  west.  With  every  forward  step 
something  of  the  old  community  of  thought 
and  action  and  aspiration  was  cast  aside. 
Divine  revelation  was  as  diverse  as  earthly 
experience,  mind  and  body  were  moulded  in 
opposite  fashion,  the  last  obvious  link  of 
kinship  snapped,  and  when  at  last  East 
and  West  met  suddenly  face  to  face,  the 
mystery  of  the  severed  roads  that  joined 
again  in  a  perfect  ring  was  no  more  baf- 
fling than  were  the  firmly  fixed  personalities 
that  were  innocent  of  intention  in  the  round 
that  had  brought  them  together. 

For  thousands  of  years  both  had  gone  on 
their  separate  ways,  oblivious,  severally  satis- 
[16] 


The  Genius  of  Japanese  Art 

fied.  Somewhere,  threading  the  depths  of 
tangled  experience,  were  others  acknowledged 
as  kin:  sometimes  the  paths  touched,  merged, 
separated  again.  There  was  calling  across  the 
wild,  interchange  of  stories  of  adventure,  assist- 
ance rendered,  combat  joined.  But  these 
were  only  threads  of  the  sundered  halves  of 
the  rope  of  life  eternally  divided  far  back  in  the 
shadowy  abysm  of  the  long  forgotten.  The 
strands  stretched  east  and  the  strands  stretched 
west,  and  between  East  and  West  was  no 
meeting  of  any  sort  whatsoever. 

Now  the  strands  have  drawn  together, 
East  and  West;  many  are  lost,  broken;  some 
have  been  knotted  again  and  extended 
afresh,  but  where  West  comes  to  the  meeting 
with  a  thick  sheaf  of  gathering  threads,  East 
halts  at  gaze  holding  a  single  strand. 

This  is  no  strained  simile:  there  is  some- 
thing between  -Europe  and  Asia  besides  a  dif- 
ference of  tongues,  and  explicit  comprehen- 
sion does  not  follow  the  mastery  of  a  grammar 
[17] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

and  a  vocabulary.  There  is  an  utter  antago- 
nism of  ideals  and  methods.  Neither  can  you 
measure  wine  with  a  yardstick,  nor  Yamato- 
damashii  by  The  Data  of  Ethics.  One  stand- 
ard is  inoperative  in  the  case  of  the  other. 

In  the  matter  of  art,  for  example,  all  the 
tests  of  detail  are  different.  Velasquez  and 
Korin  are  the  diverse  sides  of  a  shield,  either 
destructive  of  other,  it  would  seem  at  first. 
And  yet  going  deeper  we  find  that  really  not 
only  is  either  supplementary  of  other,  but  that 
away  down  beneath  the  lauded  and  much  be- 
praised  show  of  each  is  a  fundamental  soul 
that  is  identical,  and  it  is  this  last  unresolvable 
essence  that  gives  eternal  quality  to  both,  not 
the  obvious  vehicle  that  stuns  with  its  palpa- 
bility, and,  to  the  elegant  rabble,  is  the 
"thing-in-itself." 

The  circling  of  the  world  by  the  streams  of 

divided  life  wrought  very  diverse  vestures  to 

cloak  and  embellish  a  final  reality  that  was  in 

itself   immutable.       The    Japanese    and   the 

[18] 


The  Genius  of  Japanese  Art 

American,  thinking  in  terms  of  Nippon  and 
of  the  United  States,  stare,  uncomprehen- 
sive  and  mutually  repellant,  but  when  either 
is  able  to  cast  aside  the  convention  race  has 
wrought,  understanding  is  possible,  or  if  not 
understanding  then  at  least  implicit  accept- 
ance. 

The  trouble  is,  however,  that  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  say  where  racial  convention 
merges  into  racial  character,  and  where  this 
in  its  turn  stops  before  the  universal  human, 
the  quality  that  is  one  in  the  Japanese  and  the 
European.  Art  is  in  so  large  measure  a  thing 
of  both  character  and  convention,  that  it  is 
particularly  hard  for  a  man  to  look  through 
and  beyond  these  things  and  apprehend  the 
ultimate  reality.  It  is  hard  enough  to  lay 
hold  of  the  final  truth  in  religion  or  the 
conduct  of  life  when  the  modes  are  aloof 
and  forbidding:  hard  to  do  justice  to  charac- 
ter when  the  intricate  weaving  is  of  a  warp 
unheard  of,  a  woof  unimaginable;  but  when 

19] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

art  is  involved,  the  task  is  enormously  more 
difficult. 

Art  is  conventionalized  imagination:  now 
when  this  quality  which  is  so  largely  the  fruit 
of  racial  experience  develops  from  an  inherited 
tradition  that  has  been  changeless  through 
generations  unnumbered;  when  it  grows  from 
a  system  religious  in  its  origin,  now  expanded 
until  it  envelops  every  form  of  physical,  men- 
tal, and  spiritual  activity,  and  this  system  one 
that  died  out  of  western  civilization  thousands 
of  years  ago,  why  the  task  is  arduous  indeed. 

For  all  the  civilization  of  Japan,  and  there- 
fore all  the  body  of  her  art,  is  based  on  a 
communism  that  involves  the  family,  the 
State,  and  the  past,  present,  and  future. 
Reverence  for  ancestors,  worship  of  all  the 
dead,  recognition  of  the  perfect  unimpor- 
tance of  the  individual  and  of  the  supreme 
moment  of  the  family,  the  commune,  and 
the  State,  —  these  are  the  deep-laid  founda- 
tions of  Japanese  character.  They  are  far 
[20] 


The  Genius  of  Japanese  Art 

from  Western  standards,  they  have  made  a 
people  as  aloof  in  character,  in  disposition, 
in  aspiration.  All  the  art  of  Europe  is  indi- 
vidual: all  the  art  of  the  East  is  communal. 
With  us,  the  greatest  art,  the  art  of  the 
church-builders,  the  Venetian  painters,  the 
German  masters  of  music,  is  gauged  by  its 
departures  and  its  adventures:  with  them, 
the  men  of  China  and  Korea  and  Japan, 
the  art  is  greatest  that  is  most  conservative, 
most  faithful  to  reverend  tradition.  In  a 
way,  Greek  and  Japanese  art  are  closely 
akin:  each  represents  the  exquisite  perfect- 
ing in  every  minutest  detail  of  a  primary 
conception  neither  notably  exalted  nor  highly 
evolved,  yet  the  result  is,  in  plain  words,  final 
perfection.  Byzantium,  Italy,  France,  Eng- 
land, each  struck  out  dazzling  flashes  of 
transcendent  genius;  each  was  supreme  as  a 
radiant,  almost  Divine  conception,  but  none, 
not  even  thirteenth  century  Gothic,  nor  fifteenth 
century  Italian  painting,  was  suffered  to  de- 
[21] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

velop  to  its  highest  possible  point:  each  was 
abandoned  when  hardly  more  than  sketched 
in,  a  new  prophet  arising  to  claim  univer- 
sal allegiance,  and,  after  a  very  few  centuries, 
to  inherit  implacable  oblivion.  In  Japan  one 
mode,  one  civilization,  held  for  more  than  a 
thousand  years,  essentially  changeless  and 
unchanged.  Shinto,  Confucianism,  Bud- 
dhism, all  beat  and  broke  against  the  ada- 
mant of  a  racial  character  fixed  for  ages 
eternal.  Buddhism  did,  indeed,  create  Japa- 
nese civilization  and  art,  but  it  was  only  the 
Divine  spark,  the  Finger-touch  of  God,  that 
stirred  the  waiting  potentiality  into  activity. 
As  a  religion  Buddhism  was  powerless  to 
bring  revolution  or  fundamental  change. 

Japan  is  the  vortex  of  the  East.  Into  her 
has  been  drawn  the  essential  elements  of 
India,  China,  Korea:  she  stands  now,  pre- 
served to  our  own  day  by  the  wisdom  of  Toku- 
gawa  lyeasu,  the  sole  representative  of  Asiatic 
civilization.  Her  art  is  not  only  intrinsically 


The  Genius  of  Japanese  Art 

precious,  but  infinitely  valuable  as  a  record 
of  sociological  and  spiritual  development. 

I  do  not  mean  to  imply  by  what  I  have 
said  above  that  it  is  impossible  to  judge  it  by 
western  standards:  in  so  far  as  these  are  uni- 
versal and  neither  local  nor  special,  Japanese 
art  stands  the  test  as  well  as  that  of  our  own 
race.  Indeed,  I  am  not  sure  that  it  may  not 
possess  a  distinct  value  in  enabling  us  to  dis- 
criminate between  those  standards  univer- 
sally accepted,  which  are  fixed  and  for  all 
time,  and  those  others,  equally  accepted,  but 
arbitrary,  ephemeral,  unsound.  All  art  meets 
and  is  judged  on  one  common  and  indestruc- 
tible basis:  but  each  manifestation  possesses 
numberless  other  qualities,  many  of  them  of 
almost  equal  value,  but  peculiar,  intimate, 
and  personal.  These  must  be  judged  by 
other  standards,  and  it  is  here  that  I  think 
we  shall  fail  in  our  estimate  of  Japanese  art, 
since  the  two  races  are  at  present  absolutely 
unable  to  think  in  the  same  terms.  If,  fail- 
[23] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

ing  to  apprehend  these  minor  qualities,  we 
can  separate  them,  and  lay  them,  for  the 
time,  to  one  side,  so  revealing  the  kernel 
which  contains  the  very  essence  of  all,  we 
shall  be  able,  if  not  to  judge  Japanese  art 
justly,  at  least  to  realize  the  position  it  takes 
in  the  body  of  art  that  belongs  to  mankind 
as  Man. 


[24] 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  EARLY  ARCHITECTURE   OF 
JAPAN 


JAPANESE  architecture  is  undoubtedly 
less  well  known  and  less  appreciated  than 
the  architecture  of  any  other  civilized  nation. 
Not  only  this,  but  it  is  almost  universally  mis- 
judged, and  while  we  have  by  degrees  come 
to  know  and  admire  the  pictorial  and  indus- 
trial arts  of  Japan,  her  architecture,  which  is 
the  root  and  vehicle  of  all  other  modes  of  art, 
is  passed  over  with  a  casual  reference  to  its 
fantastic  quality  or  a  patronizing  tribute  to  the 
excellence  of  some  of  its  carved  decoration. 

Unjust  and  superficial  as  is  this  attitude  it 
is  perhaps  excusable,  for  the  architecture  of 
Japan  being  logical,  historical,  ethnic,  is,  of 
[25] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

course,  profoundly  Oriental,  and  it  is  as 
difficult  for  the  Western  mind  to  think  in 
terms  of  the  East,  as  it  is  for  the  same  mind 
to  understand  or  appreciate  the  vast  and 
splendid  fabrics  of  Oriental  thought  and 
Oriental  civilization. 

In  nearly  every  instance  those  who  have 
written  most  intelligently  of  Japan  and  of 
her  art  have  shown  no  rudimentary  appre- 
ciation of  her  architecture:  it  is  dismissed 
with  a  sentence.  To  the  Western  traveler 
it  seems  only  fanciful  and  frail,  a  thing  un- 
worthy of  study;  the  shrines  of  Nikko  are 
assumed  to  be  the  highest  point  attained, 
and  the  consummate  work  of  the  great  period 
between  the  seventh  and  twelfth  centuries  is 
ignored.  Nikko,  Shiba,  Ueno,  indeed  only 
the  temple  architecture  of  the  Tokugawa 
period  is  considered  at  all,  while  Horiuji, 
Yakushiji  and  the  Ho-o-do  of  Byodo-in,  are 
completely  ignored,  and  the  castle  and  domes- 
tic architecture  are  treated  as  non-existent. 
[26] 


The  Early  Architecture  of  Japan 

This  is  unjust  and  absurd:  it  is  as  though 
one  presumed  to  judge  the  architecture  of 
Italy  by  the  works  of  the  High  Renaissance, 
or  that  of  France  by  the  Flamboyant  period; 
the  architecture  of  the  Tokugawa  Shogunate 
has  many  elements  of  unique  grandeur,  while 
its  splendour  of  colour  and  decoration  are  with- 
out parallel,  but  it  is  no  more  to  be  compared 
with  that  of  the  Nara,  Kyoto,  and  Kamakura 
periods  than  is  the  work  of  Palladio  with  the 
temples  of  Athens. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  architecture  of 
Japan  is  one  of  the  most  perfect  examples 
of  steady  development  and  ultimate  decay  - 
the  whole  lasting  through  twelve  centuries  - 
that  is  anywhere  to  be  found.  In  the  West 
a  certain  style  lasts  at  most  three  centuries, 
when  it  is  superseded  by  another  of  quite 
different  nature,  itself  doomed  to  ultimate 
extinction:  in  Japan  we  see  the  advent  of  a 
style  coincident  with  the  civilization  of  which 
it  was  the  artistic  manifestation,  and  then 
[27] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

for  twelve  hundred  years  we  can  watch  it 
develop,  little  by  little,  adapting  itself  always 
with  the  most  perfect  aptitude  to  the  varying 
phases  of  a  great  and  wonderful  civilization, 
finally  becoming  extinct  (let  us  hope  only 
temporarily)  after  a  blaze  of  superficial  glory 
that  led  to  the  imperiling  of  national  civiliza- 
tion and  the  submergence  of  a  great  and  unique 
nation  in  the  flood  of  Western  mediocrity. 

Such  a  progress  as  this  cannot  fail  to  be 
interesting  to  the  student  of  art,  while  the 
architecture  itself,  when  once  it  is  known, 
\\becomes  a  thing  of  extreme  beauty,  dignity, 
and  nobility,  immensely  significant,  profoundly 
indicative  of  the  fundamental  laws  that  under- 
lie all  great  architecture. 

Carefully  analyzed  and  faithfully  studied, 
Japanese  architecture  is  seen  to  be  one  of  the 
great  styles  of  the  world.  In  no  respect  is  it 
lacking  in  those  qualities  which  have  made 
Greek,  Medieval,  and  Early  Renaissance 
architecture  immortal:  as  these  differ  among 
[28] 


The  Early  Architecture  of  Japan 

themselves,  so  does  the  architecture  of  Japan 
differ  from  them,  yet  with  them  it  remains 
logical,  ethnic,  perfect  in  development. 

In  one  respect  it  is  unique:  it  is  a  style 
developed  from  the  exigencies  of  wooden 
construction,  and  here  it  stands  alone  as  the 
mosjt^pejiect  mode-m— weed  the  world  has 
known.  As  such  it  must  be  judged,  and  not 
from  the  narrow  canons  of  the  West  that 
presuppose  masonry  as  the  only  building 
material.  Again,  it  is  the  architecture  of 
Buddhism,  and  it  must  be  read  in  the  light 
of  this  mystic  and  wonderful  system.  Finally, 
it  is  the  art  of  the  Orient,  taking  form  and 
nature  from  Eastern  civilization,  vitalized  by 
the  "  Soul  of  the  East,"  the  artistic  manifesta- 
tion of  the  religion  of  meditation,  of  spiritual 
enlightenment,  of  release  from  illusion.  It 
is  separated  from  the  art  of  the  Western  re- 
ligion of  action,  of  elaborate  ethical  systems, 
of  practicality,  by  the  diameter  of  being. 

Bearing  these  things  in  mind,  let  us  con- 
[29] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

sider  historically  and  critically  the  beginnings 
and  subsequent  development  of  Japanese 
architecture. 

Previous  to  the  reign  of  the  Empress  Suiko 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  sixth  century,  Japan 
was  a  comparatively  barbarous  State,  but 
the  mixture  of  Tartar  and  Malay  blood  had 
resulted  in  a  race  that  was  waiting  only  for 
the  impulse  that  should  start  it  on  its  career 
of  greatness.  The  ethnic  religion  was  a  prim- 
itive cult  of  the  dead  of  which  the  modern 
Shinto  is  a  somewhat  artificial  restoration. 
It  was  impotent  of  the  highest  spiritual 
good,  and  when  the  revelation  of  Buddhism 
burst  on  the  people  of  Japan,  an  entire  race 
rose  suddenly  into  splendid  action.  Bud- 
dhist priests  and  monks  came  from  Korea 
to  the  waiting  nation,  and  with  them,  at  the 
instigation  of  Prince  Shotoku,  came  archi- 
tects, sculptors,  and  scholars.  Nara  became 
the  capital:  in  a  few  years  the  monastery  of 
Horiuji  was  built  by  Korean  architects,  and 
[30] 


Plate    III. — THE    PAGODA    OF    HORIUJI. 


The  Early  Architecture  of  Japan 

of  this  first  great  work  of  art  on  Japanese 
soil,  the  Kondo,  Go-ju-to,  and  Azeku-no- 
mon  still  stand,  priceless  records  of  the  birth 
of  a  great  nation.  (Plate  II.) 

In  style  they  are  purely  Korean,  or  rather 
Chinese,  of  the  Tang  dynasty,  for  the  civiliza- 
tion of  Korea  was  that  of  Chinese  Buddhism, 
and  it  is  doubtful  if  any  material  change 
had  taken  place  in  its  acquired  architecture, 
though  a  distinct  refinement  was  visible  in 
the  great  school  of  Korean  sculpture  that  was 
now  to  make  possible  in  Japan  plastic  art 
of  the  most  notable  and  supreme  type. 

This  Korean  or  Chinese  architecture  was, 
at  the  time  of  its  advent  in  Japan,  a  style  that 
was  almost  perfectly  developed;  in  simplicity 
and  directness  of  construction,  in  subtlety 
and  rhythm  of  line,  in  dignity  of  massing,  in 
perfection  of  proportion  and  in  gravity  and 
solemnity  of  composition,  it  shows  all  the 
evidences  of  a  supreme  civilization;  as  must 
indeed  have  been  the  case,  for  at  this  time,  the 
[31] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

last  quarter  of  the  sixth  century,  China  was, 
without  doubt,  the  most  perfectly  developed 
and  most  nobly  civilized  of  the  then  existing 
nations  of  the  earth. 

This  group  of  buildings,  —  gate,  temple, 
and  pagoda  —  is  the  most  precious  architec- 
tural monument  in  Japan,  indeed  in  all  Asia, 
for  it  not  only  marks  the  birth  of  Japan  as  a 
civilized  power,  but  from  it  we  can  reconstruct 
the  architecture  of  China,  now  swept  out  of 
existence  and  only  a  memory.  And  its  artis- 
tic value  is  no  less;  small  as  they  are,  these 
buildings  are  almost  unequaled  in  Japan  for 
absolute  beauty,  and  they  have  remained  the 
type  from  which  all  the  architecture  of  the 
nation  has  developed. 

The  Azeku-no-mon,  or  Middle  Gate,  re- 
mains as  it  was  first  built:  the  lower  galleries 
of  the  Kondo  and  Go-ju-to  (Plates  III  and 
IV)  date  only  from  the  sixteenth  or  seven- 
teenth centuries  and  grievously  injure  the 
proportions  of  the  ancient  buildings,  while 
[32] 


The  Early  Architecture  of  Japan 

the  angle  supports  of  the  upper  roof  of  the 
Kondo  are  of  the  Tokugawa  period,  and  are 
also  unfortunate.  In  spite  of  these  addi- 
tions the  extraordinary  grace  and  refinement 
of  the  work  compel  the  most  profound  admi- 
ration; and  at  first  it  seems  as  though 
there  were  nothing  more  for  Japan  to  do  in 
the  line  of  development,  so  perfect  seems 
this  architecture  borrowed  from  China  and 
Korea:  yet  further  development  was  possible 
as  we  shall  see  later. 

Here  at  Horiuji  the  technical  details  are 
almost  beyond  criticism.  The  plan  of  the 
Kondo  is  of  the  simplest  type:  a  central  space 
open  to  the  cornice  and  covered  by  a  ceiling 
of  wooden  beams,  flat,  except  for  a  delicate 
coving  at  the  sides.  The  clearstory  —  if  it 
may  be  called  so,  since  it  is  without  windows 
-  is  supported  by  cylindrical  columns  of 
wood;  the  whole  is  surrounded  by  an  aisle 
with  a  sloping  roof.  Everything  is  absolutely 
constructional,  and  such  ornament  as  there 
[33] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

is,  is  only  applied  to  the  constructive  details. 
The  columns  have  a  delicate  entasis  and  the 
spacing  is  most  refined;  the  bracketing  is 
straightforward  and  constructional;  the  dis- 
tribution of  wood  and  plaster  carefully 
studied,  the  vertical  and  lateral  proportions, 
and  the  curves  of  the  roofs  and  ridges  are 
consummate  in  their  delicacy;  the  colour  is 
of  the  simplest,  —  dull  but  luminous  red  for 
all  the  woodwork,  the  plaster  being  white, 
the  roofs  of  green-gray  tiles.  (Plates  IV 
and  V.) 

These  three  buildings  form  but  a  small 
part  of  the  enormous  monastery  of  Horiuji, 
but  they  are  the  only  ones  that  unquestion- 
ably date  from  the  beginning  of  Japanese 
civilization.  The  whole  forms  a  good  model 
of  the  early  Buddhist  monastery,  with  its 
central  group  of  temple,  pagoda,  and  lecture- 
hall  standing  in  the  midst  of  a  vast,  covered 
kwairo  or  cloister  entered  through  the  great 
two-story  gate,  its  subordinate  shrines,  tern- 
[34] 


§m 
^J^&  •"•  ••'    .-  •- 


**=.      ife      r     /: 

%A 


The  Early  Architecture  of  Japan 

pies,  and  halls,  and  its  adjoining  street  of 
houses  for  the  priests  and  monks.  Apparently 
the  style  of  the  original  work  has  been  most 
carefully  followed  in  all  the  rebuilding,  and 
though  the  cloisters,  and  all  the  subordinate 
buildings,  are  only  a  few  hundred  years  old, 
they  are,  in  all  probability,  perfectly  reliable 
models  of  the  early  Korean  work.  The 
general  plan  is  noble  and  dignified,  and  the 
grouping  and  composition  consummately  deli- 
cate, though  everything  is  on  a  much  smaller 
scale  than  in  many  of  the  more  recent  mon- 
asteries around  Kyoto.  The  temples  con- 
tain treasures  of  sculpture  that  cannot  be 
equaled  elsewhere  in  Japan,  while  the  Kondo 
shows  on  its  walls  remains  of  most  extraor- 
dinary mural  painting  that  make  clear  the 
curious  combination  of  influences  that  gov- 
erned the  art  of  China  and  Korea  in  the 
seventh  century.  This  is  much  more  evi- 
dent in  the  sculpture  of  the  sixth  and  seventh 
centuries  than  in  any  other  form  of  art,  but 
[35] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

these  singular  wall  decorations  show  plainly 
the  powerful  influence  of  India,  and  even 
that  of  the  decadent  classic  of  Asia  Minor; 
the  only  absolute  trace  of  this  latter  quality  as 
it  was  shown  in  architecture  is  the  entasis  of 
the  columns  of  the  great  gate,  used  here,  I 
believe,  for  the  first  and  only  time. 

Next  in  date  to  the  work  in  Horiuji  is  the 
San-ju-to,  or  three-storied  pagoda  of  Hokiji, 
not  far  from  Horiuji,  and  dating  from  the 
year  646.  In  detail  this  very  beautiful  little 
structure  is  identical  with  those  at  Horiuji, 
and  must  either  have  been  built  by  Korean 
architects,  or  (more  probably)  Japanese,  who 
dared  not  vary  an  hair's  breadth  from  the 
perfect  model.  The  vertical  dimensions  are 
a  little  greater  in  proportion  to  the  width 
than  at  Horiuji,  and  as  this  is  directly  in 
line  with  the  future  development  of  the  style, 
it  seems  quite  possible  that  this  is  the  work 
of  Japanese  architects,  and  if  so  the  first 
existing  instance  in  the  country.  At  the 
[36] 


Plate   VI. — YAKUSHIJI    PAGODA. 


The  Early  Architecture  of  Japan 

ruined  temple  of  Horinji,  also  close  at  hand, 
is  another  three-storied  pagoda,  the  vertical 
proportions  of  which  are  still  more  drawn  out, 
with  yet  greater  lightness  of  effect. 

Still  nearer  the  present  shrunken  city  of 
Nara  lies  the  temple  of  Yakushiji,  and  here 
we  find  a  pagoda  that  is  not  only  unique,  but, 
as  well,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  structures 
in  Japan,  and  also  the  first  undoubted  work 
by  a  native  architect  (Plate  VI).  If  the  pro- 
totype of  so  revolutionary  a  structure  existed 
in  China  we  can  never  know,  but  as  this 
triumph  of  imagination  dates  from  the  year 
680,  a  full  century  after  the  coming  of  the 
Korean  architects,  and  as  it  is  full  of  charac- 
teristically Japanese  features,  we  are,  I  think, 
justified  in  accrediting  it  to  native  genius, 
particularly  as  its  date  corresponds  exactly/)  / 
with  that  of  the  highest  level  reached  by  the 
first  great  school  of  purely  Japanese  sculp- 
ture. 

This  pagoda  of  Yakushiji  is  one  of  the  most 
[37] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

daring,  original  and  yet  successful  works  of 
architecture  in  Japan;  nothing  of  the  delicacy 
of  line,  frankness  of  construction,  subtlety  of 
proportion  so  characteristic  of  Horiuji  is 
wanting,  but  in  place  of  the  severe  and  classic 
masses  of  the  Korean  work  is  an  aspiring 
lightness,  a  captivating  grace  that  only  find  a 
parallel  in  the  medieval  architecture  of 
Europe.  And  yet  this  consummate  achieve- 
ment was  the  work  of  a  people  separated  by 
hardly  more  than  a  century  from  practical 
barbarism,  and  it  had  already  stood  five 
hundred  years  when  Europe  emerged  from 
the  dark  ages  and  first  began  her  tentative 
efforts  at  building  a  new  civilization  and  a 
new  art. 

The  pagoda  of  Yakushiji  marks  the  birth 
of  national  Japanese  architecture;  in  it  may 
be  discovered  the  germs  of  its  future  develop- 
ment; loftiness  and  varied  grace  in  place  of 
the  somber  severity  of  the  Chinese  model, 
daring  originality,  richness  and  elaboration 
[38] 


The  Early  Architecture  of  Japan 

of  detail.  Here,  for  the  first  time,  we  find 
the  doubled  brackets  that  were  to  develop 
into  the  splendid  system  of  the  Kamakura 
and  Ashikaga  periods  and  ultimately  fritter 
themselves  away  in  the  trivialities  of  the 
Tokugawa  regime. 

From  this  single  example  we  may  form 
some  idea  of  the  general  architecture  of  the 
period,  but  it  can  only  be  inadequate.  Owing 
to  the  perishable  nature  of  the  building 
material,  the  constant  wars  that  ravaged 
Japan,  and  the  incessant  moving  of  the 
Court,  nearly  every  work  of  architecture  dat- 
ing from  the  first  three  centuries  of  Japanese 
civilization  has  been  destroyed.  All  the  im- 
portant temples  and  all  the  palaces  of  the 
seventh  and  eighth  centuries  that  cover  the 
Nara  period  are  gone,  and  all  that  remains  is 
this  one  pagoda  of  a  comparatively  small 
temple.  Yet  at  the  close  of  this  period  Nara 
covered  an  area  of  nearly  thirty  square  miles, 
and  had  a  population  of  more  than  half  a 
[39] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

million.  Hundreds  of  temples  surrounded 
it,  and  the  hills  were  full  of  monasteries,  while 
the  Imperial  palace,  fashioned  probably  after 
the  gorgeous  palaces  of  China,  must  have 
been  a  structure  of  extreme  beauty.  Of  this 
latter  no  tradition  —  I  believe  —  remains,  but 
judging  from  the  slight  changes  that  took 
place  in  temple  architecture  between  the 
Tenchi  and  Fujiwara  periods,  we  are  justified 
in  finding  some  hint  of  its  nature  in  one  build- 
ing that  dates  from  the  eleventh  century,  the 
Ho-o-do  of  the  temple  of  Byodo-in  at  Uji. 

Before  this  wonderful  building  was  erected, 
Japanese  architecture  had  passed  through 
several  stages;  the  first  Korean  impulse  had 
worked  itself  out,  and  from  the  year  725  on 
to  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century  there 
was  a  steady  retrogression  both  in  sculpture 
and  architecture.  The  only  buildings  of  this 
period  that  remain  are  the  small  and  very 
simple  temples  of  Toshodaiji,  Todaiji  and 
Shiny akushiji,  all  of  which  show  a  primitive 
[40] 


The  Early  Architecture  of  Japan 

plan,  simple  construction,  low  roofs,  and 
absence  of  ornament.  With  the  ninth  cen- 
tury came,  however,  a  new  impulse,  this  time 
directly  from  China,  and  at  once  Japanese 
civilization  leaped  to  a  height  unattained 
before.  The  Court  was  removed  to  what  is 
now  Kyoto,  and  organized  on  the  most  elabo- 
rate Chinese  lines:  learning,  philosophy,  the 
fine  arts,  manners,  became  the  objects  of 
study  for  the  new  and  magnificent  aristocracy, 
and  a  veritable  golden  age  of  culture  began. 
This  was  the  period  of  the  Fujiwara,  and  the 
best  record  of  its  magnificence  now  left  us 
is  this  same  Ho-o-do  at  Uji,  now  a  small 
village,  only  a  few  miles  from  Kyoto. 

No  description  and  no  photograph  can  give 
any  idea  of  the  almost  inconceivable  grace 
and  dignity  of  this  unique  building.  (Plates 
VII  and  VIII.)  It  is  in  the  purest  palace 
style  and  consists  of  a  central  shrine  ap- 
proached from  the  rear  by  a  long,  enclosed 
corridor,  and  with  open  two-story  arcades 
[41] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

terminating  in  low  pavilions,  reaching  out  on 
either  hand.  In  delicacy  of  proportion  and 
refinement  of  composition  it  marks  the  cul- 
mination of  Japanese  architecture;  the  com- 
ing centuries  were  to  see  structures  of  far 
greater  size,  grandeur,  and  dramatic  quality, 
but  in  no  instance  were  they  to  approach  this 
"Phoenix  Hall"  in  all  that  makes  for  refine- 
ment and  classical  perfection. 

Exquisite  as  this  building  is  from  without, 
one  must  go  inside  to  learn  of  the  splendid 
gorgeousness  that  characterized  the  work  of 
the  Fujiwara  period;  ruined  by  neglect  and 
inevitable  decay  it  yet  remains  beautiful  in 
line,  detail,  and  design.  In  the  days  of  its 
glory  it  must  have  been  a  marvel,  for  all  the 
woodwork  of  the  wonderfully  carved  and 
coffered  ceiling  was  covered  with  black 
lacquer  inlaid  with  ivory,  mother-of-pearl, 
and  silver,  while  all  below  was  gilding  and 
polychromatic  decoration. 

These,  then,  are  the  three  temples  from 
[42] 


The  Early  Architecture  of  Japan 

whose  few  remains  we  must  learn  all  that 
we  can  ever  know  of  the  architecture  of 
the  first  five  centuries  of  Japanese  civili- 
zation, Horiuji,  Yakushiji,  and  Byodo-in. 
Carefully  studied  and  without  Western  preju- 
dice, they  will  be  seen  to  indicate  inevitably 
the  existence  in  Japan  of  a  system  and 
school  of  architecture  quite  worthy  to  take  its 
place  with  the  already  recognized  schools  of 
classical,  medieval,  and  Renaissance  Europe. 
In  them  one  sees  at  once  how  unjust  must 
be  a  judgment  of  Japanese  architecture 
founded  on  the  shrines  of  Shiba  and  Nikko, 
and  the  crowded  temples  of  the  Tokugawa 
period  that  rise  in  every  village  in  Japan. 
In  every  detail  the  early  work  has  been 
coarsened  and  vulgarized;  the  low  roofs  with 
their  wonderful  curves  have  risen  to  gigantic 
sweeps  of  blue  tile,  steep,  coarsely  curved,  and 
loaded  with  huge  ridges;  the  bracketing  has 
become  a  wilderness  of  tortured  carving  and 
joinery,  tedious  and  overloaded:  ornament  is 
[43] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

no  longer  constructional,  it  is  arbitrary,  and 
by  its  very  prodigality  it  becomes  cheap  and 
tawdry.  So  far  as  the  interior  is  concerned, 
the  results  have  been  by  no  means  so  bad,  for 
the  Korean  work  was  simple  —  almost  for- 
bidding; and  it  must  be  confessed  that  a 
temple  interior,  like  that  of  Chion-in  at  Kyoto, 
leaves  almost  no  loophole  for  criticism,  while 
the  inconceivable  richness  of  Shiba  and  Nikko 
is  yet  in  perfect  taste.  The  riotousness  that 
occurred  in  external  work  never  happened 
to  a  like  degree  in  the  interior,  and  the  plan 
and  details  remain  simple  and  closely  modeled 
on  the  early  work.  The  greatest  revolution 
was  in  decoration,  and  instead  of  the  Korean 
woodwork  covered  with  red  oxide  of  lead, 
the  white  plaster  and  formal  wall  painting, 
came  an  apotheosis  of  colour.  Certain  temple 
interiors  are  a  glory  of  burnished  gold, 
columns,  walls,  and  ceilings,  with  just  enough 
black  and  red  lacquer  to  give  the  required 
accent;  in  others,  the  black  lacquer  predomi- 
[44] 


The  Early  Architecture  of  Japan 

nates,  and  the  floors  and  columns  are  like 
polished  ebony;  in  others  every  inch  of  the 
fabric  is  painted  in  brilliant  yet  delicate 
colours.  Whatever  the  treatment,  the  effect 
is  always  splendid  and  imposing,  sometimes, 
as  at  Chion-in,  unspeakably  sublime,  and 
matched,  if  matched  at  all,  only  by  St.  Mark's 
in  Venice,  or  the  Capella  Palatina  in  Palermo. 
After  the  time  of  the  Fujiwara,  Japanese 
architecture  certainly  degenerated  steadily, 
but  decoration  advanced  with  equal  rapidity 
until  the  opening  of  the  ports  by  Commodore 
Perry  started  the  final  catastrophe  that  has 
involved  both  architecture  and  decoration, 
if  nothing  else,  in  final,  if  not  irretrievable, 
ruin. 


[45] 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    LATER    ARCHITECTURE 
OF    JAPAN 


TOWARDS  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century  the  dynasty  of  Fujiwara  Sho- 
guns  was  finally  overthrown  after  almost  two 
centuries  of  domestic  warfare,  and  a  new  line 
was  established,  that  of  the  Ashikaga,  who 
completely  severed  themselves  from  the  Im- 
perial Court  at  Kyoto,  and,  building  the  great 
city  of  Kamakura  far  to  the  north  and  near 
the  site  of  the  present  capital,  began  a  new 
and  brilliant,  though  corrupt  and  chaotic, 
administration. 

During  the  two  centuries  of  internal  conflict 
Japan  had  almost  wholly  cut  herself  off  from 
China,  the  great  source  of  learning  and  culture, 
[46] 


The  Later  Architecture  of  Japan 

but  by  the  founding  of  the  Ashikaga  dynasty 
intercourse  was  resumed,  and  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Zen  mission  temple  building  began 
again  on  new  lines,  and  a  recrudescence  of 
Chinese  influence  came  into  existence. 

At  this  time  the  Ming  dynasty  was  striving 
to  restore  the  almost  incredible  glories  of  that 
of  the  Sungs  which  had  made  Hangchow  the 
culmination  of  world  civilization  in  the  twelfth 
century.  For  some  years  Buddhist  priests 
had  been  coming  from  China  to  Japan  bring- 
ing the  new  gospel  according  to  the  Zen  sect, 
and  now,  with  peace  established,  their  work 
began  to  show  its  results.  A  new  epoch  of 
civilization,  generally  called  the  Kamakura 
period,  set  in,  and  architecture  received  a 
new  accession  of  vitality,  reaching  its  last 
phase  of  greatness  before  the  first  trace  of 
decay  showed  itself  under  the  Tokugawa 
Shoguns.  Two  sets  of  buildings  are  most 
characteristic  of  this  period;  the  Zen  temples 
and  the  palace  pavilions  of  Kyoto. 
[47] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

In  the  former  we  immediately  see  certain 
deviations  from  the  old  types.  The  arrange- 
ment of  the  group  of  temple  buildings  is 
different;  there  is  seldom  a  pagoda,  and  the 
temple  and  preaching  hall  stand  one  behind 
the  other  in  the  centre  of  the  main  enclosure; 
libraries,  schoolrooms  and  monastic  buildings 
surround  this  space,  and  oftentimes  open 
cloisters  connect  them  with  the  central  temples, 
dividing  the  entire  area  into  three  great  courts ; 
minor  courtyards  with  shrines  and  schools 
and  priests'  houses  continue  the  group  on 
either  hand  in  complete  bilateral  symmetry. 
In  many  cases  the  group  of  buildings  is  laid 
out  on  a  vast  and  imposing  plan,  but  in  almost 
every  instance  so  many  of  the  buildings  have 
been  burned  that  little  idea  can  be  gained  of 
the  original  design.  The  gigantic  monastery 
of  Obaku-san  between  Uji  and  Kyoto,  though 
dating  from  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  is  perhaps  the  most  complete  ex- 
ample of  the  great  Zen  temple  in  Japan. 
[48] 


The  Later  Architecture  of  Japan 

The  low  and  often  long  temples  of  the 
Korean  style  give  place  in  the  Zen  architec- 
ture to  buildings  that  are  nearly  square,  and 
very  lofty  inside.  A  central  space  reaches 
high  into  the  roof,  which  rests  on  twelve 
widely  spaced  columns,  often  of  great  size. 
One  and  sometimes  two  aisles  surround  this 
central  area,  and  small  shrines,  chapels,  and 
altars  are  grouped  at  the  chancel  end.  The 
temple  itself  is  raised  on  a  low  stone  terrace, 
and  the  floor  is  also  of  stone  slabs.  Plaster 
is  seldom  used,  all  the  work  being  of  wood, 
and  the  roofs  rise  in  steep  and  graceful 
curves.  The  system  of  bracketing  is  becom- 
ing more  and  more  elaborate  and  complex, 
but  carving  is  still  almost  wholly  absent. 
This  is  the  type  of  architecture  that  became 
fixed  in  Japan  and  persevered  until  the 
Tokugawa  regime,  when  it  burst  into  such 
unexampled  exuberance  and  luxury. 

Of  the  palace  architecture  of  this  time  we 
have  still  the  fragments  at  Ginkaku-ji  and 
[49] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

Kinkaku-ji  in  Kyoto.  As  both  these  delicate 
little  structures  were  originally  but  garden 
pavilions  it  is  possible  that  they  do  not  exactly 
represent  the  more  dignified  work  of  the  time, 
but  they  certainly  bear  a  close  resemblance 
to  the  Chinese  palaces  as  they  are  recorded 
for  us  in  the  screens  painted  by  the  great 
artists  of  the  age.  The  grandeur  and  dignity 
of  the  Fujiwara  or  Kyoto  style  has  given 
place  to  a  lightness  and  grace  that  are  very 
charming.  (Plate  IX.)  Originally  one  of 
these  pleasure  pavilions  was  entirely  covered 
with  gold  leaf,  the  other  with  silver,  and  in 
this  gorgeous  innovation  we  find  the  first  in- 
dication of  the  tendency  that  was  to  reach  its 
climax  under  the  Tokugawa. 

With  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  came 
the  fall  of  the  Ashikaga,  the  revolt  and  triumph 
of  the  barons  under  the  adventurer  Hideyo- 
shi,  and  the  almost  simultaneous  founding 
of  the  Tokugawa  dynasty  by  lyeasu,  the 
establishment  of  the  most  perfect  feudal 
[50] 


^o 


Plate    IX. — KINKAKUJI,    KYOTO. 


The  Later  Architecture  of  Japan 

system  the  world  has  ever  known,  the  trans- 
ferring of  the  capital  of  the  Shogun  to  Yeddo, 
and  the  closing  of  Japan  to  the  outer  world. 
This  tremendous  revolution  was  accomplished 
within  a  period  of  thirty-five  years,  the  over- 
throw of  the  Ashikaga  marking  the  beginning, 
the  closing  of  the  ports  the  consummation  of 
the  revolution  that  cut  Japan  off  from  the 
world  and  held  her  so  for  two  hundred  and 
twenty-five  years. 

The  epoch  which  followed  was  one  of 
industrial  development  and  domestic  civiliza- 
tion. The  Tokugawa  feudalism  was  one  of 
the  most  elaborate  and  perfect  of  which  we 
have  record,  and  under  it  Japan  was  peace- 
ful, prosperous,  and  happy.  One  fatal  error 
was  made  by  the  founders  of  the  dynasty, 
otherwise  so  notably  judicious  and  far  seeing. 
There  must  be  no  rival  power  in  the  State, 
and  therefore  not  only  was  Christianity,  at 
the  time  numbering  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  converts,  utterly  destroyed,  but  Buddhism 
[51] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

was  violently  antagonized,  and  in  its  place  a 
revival  of  Confucianism  attempted,  an  empty 
system  of  ethics  unvitalized  by  any  religious 
element.  The  attempt  was  successful  in  a 
measure,  and  ultimately  led  to  the  blunder  of 
revived  Shinto,  while  Buddhism,  out  of  favour 
with  the  nobility  and  the  knighthood,  fell 
back  upon  the  support  of  the  peasantry, 
with  the  inevitable  results. 

As  a  consequence  of  this  sequence  of 
events,  architecture,  cut  off  from  Chinese  in- 
fluence, and  answering  to  the  demands  of  the 
new  society  with  all  its  ostentatious  magnifi- 
cence, burst  into  a  riot  of  unparalleled  decora- 
tion. The  development  of  the  industrial  arts 
made  possible  a  degree  of  splendour  hitherto 
inconceivable,  and  for  the  future,  until  the 
opening  of  the  ports  sounded  the  death  knell 
of  the  ancient  regime,  architecture  was  to  be 
merged  in  decoration,  losing  little  by  little 
its  original  qualities  as  a  system  of  con- 
structive design. 

[52] 


The  Later  Architecture  of  Japan 

One  curious  reaction  took  place  in  the  shape 
of  a  third  recrudescence  of  the  Chinese  type 
just  at  the  time  of  the  closing  of  Japan. 
Obaku-san  near  Uji,  already  referred  to,  is 
the  great  monument  of  the  classical  style, 
and  it  came  as  a  protest  against  the  almost 
barbaric  richness  of  the  work  of  Hideyoshi's 
time.  Complete  as  it  is  in  plan  and  imposing 
in  design,  it  is  yet  weak  and  inferior  in  detail, 
and  shows  very  clearly  how  self-conscious 
and  affected  an  imitation  it  was  of  the  Chi- 
nese type. 

This  last  flicker  of  classical  influence  was 
purely  sporadic,  and  quite  impotent  to  stop 
the  triumphant  progress  of  the  luxurious  style 
already  formulating  itself  at  Nikko  in  the 
shrine  of  lyeasu.  (Plates  XI  and  XII.) 

In  the  presence  of  this  bewildering  piece 
of  reckless  ornamentation  one  is  apt  to  be 
blinded  by  its  extravagance  to  the  actual 
shortcomings  of  its  architecture;  but  once 
strip  it  of  its  carving,  its  lacquer,  its  gold  leaf 
[53] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

and  polychromatic  decoration,  and  compare 
it  in  detail  with  the  work  of  the  Korean 
period,  or  even  of  the  Fujiwara  and  Ashikaga, 
and  it  is  easy  to  see  how  great  has  been  the 
fall:  the  roofs  are  heavy  and  often  coarse  in 
their  curves,  the  roof  ridges  and  ribs  have 
become  enormous,  crude,  and  meaningless, 
the  bracketing  is  fantastic  and  irrational  in 
its  intricacy  and  has  lost  the  last  structural 
excuse.  Above  all,  the  following  of  the  lines, 
the  curve  composition,  is  no  longer  inevitably 
good.  In  the  work  of  the  Nara  and  Kyoto 
period  one  may  view  a  building  from  any 
point,  and  by  some  magical  power  the  archi- 
tect has  so  composed  his  curves  that  there  is 
not  a  discord,  a  lack  of  rhythm  anywhere. 
(See  Plate  X.)  Under  the  Tokugawa  this 
is  no  longer  true,  and  one  is  constantly  shocked 
at  some  violent  discord  in  the  composition  of 
line. 

It  is  quite  true  that  many  of  the  temples 
of  this  period,  like  the  Higashi  Hongwanji  at 
[54] 


The  Later  Architecture  of  Japan 

Nagoya,  are  tremendously  imposing,  —  more 
so  in  size  and  general  effect  than  any  of  the 
earlier  structures,  —  and  occasionally  there 
is  almost  no  fault  to  be  found  with  the  com- 
position of  their  curves;  but  too  often  size  is 
the  only  reason  for  admiration. 

Leave  out  the  question  of  pure  architecture 
and  the  Nikko  shrines,  together  with  those 
of  Shiba  and  Uyeno  in  Tokyo,  are  marvels  of 
exquisite  art.  The  decoration  is  masterly, 
the  dramatic  and  pictorial  effect  triumphant, 
but  it  is  the  triumph  of  prodigal  decoration, 
not  of  architectural  achievement. 

Throughout  Japan  the  majority  of  temples 
that  now  exist  date  from  this  period  of  the 
Tokugawa  Shogunate.  None  of  them  ap- 
proaches the  gorgeousness  of  Nikko,  Shiba, 
and  Uyeno,  but  many  are  vastly  greater  id 
more  dignified.  In  all  of  them,  however,  one 
can  trace  the  progressive  coarsening  of  detail 
and  loss  of  sense  of  perfect  curvature,  until 
they  reach  the  final  point  of  degradation  in 
[55] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

the  contemporary  Shinto  shrine,  Shokonsha, 
and  the  main  temple  of  the  monastery  of 
Zojoji,  both  in  Tokyo.  Internally  the  Toku- 
gawa  temples  are  less  susceptible  of  adverse 
criticism,  many  of  them,  like  Chion-in  and 
Nishi  Hongwanji  in  Kyoto,  being  models  of 
religious  grandeur  and  solemn  splendour.  In 
this  respect,  as  examples  of  interior  decora- 
tion, the  Nikko  shrines  and  those  at  Shiba 
may  be  placed  beyond  criticism.  Every  period 
in  Japan  has  had  its  fitting  artistic  expression, 
sculpture,  architecture,  religious,  historic,  and 
genre  painting,  and  decoration,  and  the  last 
is  the  true  manifestation  of  the  Tokugawa 
Shogunate. 

Of  the  secular  architecture  of  this  period 
we  have  many  existing  examples,  all,  as  was 
to  be  expected,  characteristic  of  the  dominant 
feudalism.  The  great  castles  of  Himeiji, 
Kumamoto,  Nagoya,  and  Hikone  are  mag- 
nificent representations  of  the  feudal  estab- 
lishments of  the  daimyo,  or  territorial  nobles, 
[56] 


The  Later  Architecture  of  Japan 

and  it  is  most  regrettable  that  their  palaces  in 
Tokyo,  where  they  were  compelled  to  live 
a  portion  of  the  year,  have  been  destroyed, 
nothing  remaining  but  the  great  gates  and 
surrounding  barracks.  The  arrangement  of 
these  "yashiki"  varied  but  little:  a  hollow 
square,  often  very  large,  was  formed  by  the 
barracks  for  the  daimyo's  retainers;  these 
barracks  were  usually  two  stories  in  height, 
surmounted  by  low  pitched  roofs  of  tiles  with 
the  heavy  ridges  and  angle  rolls  with  their 
clumsy  terminals  so  characteristic  of  the  last 
stages  of  Japanese  architecture;  the  walls 
were  covered  with  black  or  blue-gray  tiles, 
about  eighteen  inches  square,  set  diagonally, 
the  joints  being  protected  by  great  rolls  of 
cement.  In  the  centre  of  the  principal  fa9ade 
was  the  great  gate,  used  only  by  the  daimyo 
or  by  guests  of  equal  station;  these  gates  were 
the  most  elaborate  and  stately  portions  of  the 
entire  group  of  buildings,  and  are  of  two  types : 
the  first  a  single  line  of  gigantic  columns  of 
[57] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

wood,  square,  and  capped  and  bound  with 
bronze  or  iron,  supporting  a  massive  system 
of  huge  beams  that  bore  the  tiled  roof.  On 
either  side  were  porters'  lodges  and  rooms 
for  the  guard,  usually  very  rich  in  design  and 
forming  a  part  of  the  whole  composition. 
(Plate  XIII.)  The  second  type  was  one 
which  took  the  place  of  that  already  described, 
in  case  it  should  have  been  destroyed  by  fire; 
because  of  some  superstition  or  prejudice,  the 
original  gate  could  never  be  restored  on  the 
same  lines.  These  substitute  gates  still  re- 
tained the  flanking  guard-houses,  but  the 
main  roof  was  omitted,  and  the  enormous 
posts  with  the  equally  massive  cross-bar  acted 
no  longer  as  supports,  except  for  the  ponderous 
gates,  studded  with  big  bronze  bolt-heads. 

Inside  the  quadrangle  of  barracks  came  a 
second  for  the  accommodation  of  the  domestic 
officials  of  the  household,  and  finally  in  the 
centre  of  all  was  the  daimyo's  yashiki,  a  plain 
one-story  building,  huge  in  extent,  but  very 
[58] 


x 


The  Later  Architecture  of  Japan 

simple.  A  forest  of  square  wooden  columns 
arranged  on  a  unit  of  six  feet  formed  the 
frame  of  the  structure,  and  sliding  screens  of 
rice-paper  or  heavy  wooden  "fusuma,"  gor- 
geously painted  and  gilded,  filled  in  the  spaces 
between  the  posts,  forming  rooms  of  various 
sizes.  In  certain  specified  places  the  walls 
were  of  solid  plaster,  but  this  was  unusual 
except  around  the  place  of  honour  where  were 
the  two  alcoves  called  "tokonoma"  and 
"chigai-dana,"  in  the  chief  rooms.  Around 
the  greater  part  of  the  house  was  a  narrow 
gallery,  called  the  "yen-gawa,"  which  by  its 
projecting  roof  served  to  protect  the  rice- 
paper  screens,  or  shoji,  that  formed  the 
outer  walls  of  the  house.  The  principal 
rooms,  "jo-dan"  and  "ge-dan,"  were  often 
of  great  size;  the  former  was  raised  a  step 
above  the  latter,  and  at  the  end  were  the 
tokonoma  and  chigai-dana  where  the  picture 
for  the  day,  and  a  choice  selection  from  the 
art  treasures  of  the  daimyo,  were  exposed. 
[59] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

On  one  side  of  the  upper  room  where  the 
lord  sat  on  state  occasions  were  two  doors  of 
the  most  gorgeous  workmanship,  through 
which  he  came  from  his  anteroom.  Around 
these  two  rooms  ran  the  iri-kawa,  or  corridor, 
from  six  to  nine  feet  wide,  forming  in  fact  a 
portion  of  the  state  apartments,  though  of 
less  honour  than  the  jo-dan. 

In  the  Japanese  house  there  is  no  distinc- 
tion between  parlour,  dining-room,  and  bed- 
room, so  a  repetition  of  the  group  of  rooms 
already  described,  together  with  reception- 
rooms,  kitchens,  baths,  and  rooms  for  the 
taking  of  tea,  made  up  the  entire  yashiki. 

The  royal  palaces  are  externally  simple 
and  monastic  (see  Plate  XIV),  but  within  the 
decoration  is  often  splendid  beyond  descrip- 
tion; gold,  black  lacquer,  carved  wood,  coved 
and  coffered  ceilings,  and  splendid  wall  paint- 
ings making  up  a  whole  of  extraordinary 
richness;  but  in  the  palace  of  the  daimyo 
much  greater  simplicity  was  the  rule,  and  the 
[60] 


The  Later  Architecture  of  Japan 

wood  was  usually  left  with  a  natural  satiny 
surface,  while  the  ceilings  were  of  plain 
boards  delicately  veined  and  coloured,  the 
whole  effect  being  one  of  great  simplicity, 
reserve,  and  refinement. 

In  the  country  castles  of  the  nobles  there 
was  a  still  greater  degree  of  simplicity,  the 
daimyo  usually  having  near  by  a  more  domes- 
tic dwelling  on  the  lines  of  the  Tokyo  yashiki, 
the  castle  being  principally  for  refuge  in  case 
of  attack.  Many  of  the  castles  still  remain 
in  an  almost  complete  condition,  Himeiji  in 
particular  being  a  most  noble  structure.  If 
the  site  were  level,  vast  walls  of  stone  curved 
upward  from  a  wide  moat,  crowned  by  tiled 
and  plastered  parapets.  Extensive  barracks 
stood  within,  and  in  the  midst  rose  the  great 
keep,  three  or  five  stories  in  height,  each  story 
somewhat  smaller  than  the  one  below,  the 
roofs  curving  outward  in  noble  lines.  These 
keeps  were  built  of  enormous  timbers,  the 
walls  being  filled  in  several  feet  thick  with 
[61] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

wattles  and  clay  and  covered  outside  with 
fine  white  plaster.  Sometimes  they  were 
plain  and  ungraceful  like  Nagoya,  but  often 
they  were  wonderfully  imposing,  and  withal 
graceful,  like  Himeiji,  Kumamoto  (Plate  XV), 
or  better  still  Hikone  (Plate  XVI). 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  on  the  arrangement 
of  the  yashiki,  for  with  allowances  for  the 
difference  in  station  of  the  respective  owners, 
it  is  practically  a  type  of  the  contemporary 
domestic  architecture  of  Japan.  The  system 
of  construction  is  the  same  and  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  rooms  very  similar,  except  that 
the  state  corridor  is  often  absent  and  the 
jo-dan  and  ge-dan  have  become  modest 
apartments  of  eight  or  ten  mats  in  size,  and 
serve  as  parlour,  bedroom,  and  dining-room 
as  the  case  may  demand. 

It  must  be  evident  that  where  construction 

is   entirely   of   wood   conflagrations   must   be 

pretty  certain,  and  such  is  the  case,  a  fire  that 

does  not  destroy  a  thousand  houses  hardly 

[62] 


The  Later  Architecture  of  Japan 

being  considered  worthy  of  chronicling  in 
the  daily  papers.  For  the  protection  of 
valuables,  therefore,  a  separate  and  fireproof 
building  is  imperative,  and  every  house  of  any 
pretension  possesses  its  "kura,"  or  store- 
house, built  of  wood  and  bamboo,  but  cov- 
ered two  feet  thick  with  clay  that  effectually 
resists  a  conflagration  of  the  utmost  fierce- 
ness. After  a  big  fire  in  a  Japanese  city, 
nothing  is  left  but  fine  ashes  and  the  scorched 
but  reliable  kura. 

We  have  now  reached  the  present  day, 
and  only  a  word  is  necessary  as  to  the  archi- 
tecture under  the  new  regime  of  Westernism 
and  "  progress."  Domestic  work  is  still  almost 
wholly  on  the  old  lines,  so  far  as  the  middle 
classes  are  concerned:  the  nobles  are  building 
palaces  from  European  designs  that  would 
dishonour  a  trans-Mississippi  city  or  a  Ger- 
man suburb.  The  public  buildings  designed 
by  local  "foreign"  architects  are  even  worse, 
and  the  least  offensive  examples  of  Western 
[63] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

styles  are  the  work  of  natives,  the  Nippon 
Ginko  and  the  Teikoku  Hotel  being  fairly 
creditable  examples  of  German  classic.  Oc- 
casionally important  temples  are  built  in  the 
native  style,  conscientiously  and  with  fine 
results  in  the  case  of  the  great  Higashi  Hong- 
wanji  temples  in  Kyoto,  but  usually  of  the 
bastard  Shinto  that  marks  the  Tokyo  Sho- 
konsha  already  referred  to. 

So  far  as  one  can  see,  the  period  of  good 
architecture  is  over  in  Japan.  The  native 
attack  on  Buddhism  two  centuries  ago  was 
the  beginning  of  the  end;  the  restoration  of 
Shinto  was  its  continuation,  and  the  accept- 
ance of  Western  civilization  was  its  consum- 
mation. For  thirteen  centuries  it  has  de- 
veloped as  civilization  progressed,  each  period 
perfecting  some  special  quality,  until  it  reached 
its  climax  of  splendour  under  the  first  of  the 
Tokugawa  Shogun.  It  is  now  a  dead  style, 
a  thing  of  the  past,  and  with  all  other  mani- 
festations of  art  in  Japan  must  forever  remain 
[64] 


> 


The  Later  Architecture  of  Japan 

so  unless  some  not  impossible  revolution 
brings  back  the  great  ideals  and  wholesome 
principles  of  the  past. 

We  have  now  considered  the  historical 
development  of  Japanese  architecture  from 
its  beginning  in  the  sixth  century  to  its  ap- 
parent extinction  in  the  last  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Examined  so  it  is  seen 
to  follow  the  lines  of  all  other  architectural 
history,  expressing  very  accurately  the  chan- 
ging conditions  of  civilization.  Like  other 
architectural  styles  it  is  a  consistent,  logical 
development  from  the  conditions  that  brought 
it  into  existence,  and  it  demands  and  should 
receive  the  same  respect  and  study  that  are 
devoted  to  the  styles  of  the  West.  It  is  true 
that,  so  aloof  is  it  from  Western  ideals  and 
methods  of  thought,  it  can  never  serve  so 
completely  as  a  model  for  contemporary 
work  as  those  styles  of  Europe  with  which 
we  in  America  have  such  close  kinship  and 
sympathy. 

[65] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  possible  for  us  to 
learn  many  most  valuable  lessons  from  it. 
In  the  first  place  we  shall  see  how  delicately 
buildings  of  all  kinds  may  be  made  to  fit 
themselves  to  their  surroundings.  In  this 
respect  the  architecture  of  Japan  acknowl- 
edges no  superior.  Nothing  could  be  more 
subtle  and  sympathetic  than  the  relationship 
between  the  temples  and  pagodas,  the  castles, 
cottages,  and  inns,  and  their  natural  surround- 
ings. In  every  line  and  mass  the  harmony  is 
complete.  The  buildings  seem  almost  to  be 
a  concentration  and  perfection  of  the  hills 
and  trees  of  which  they  seem  to  be  a  part. 
One  feels  this  particularly  when  looking  on 
any  structure  designed  on. Western  lines,  no 
matter  how  excellent  it  may  be  according  to 
European  standards.  The  native  work  is  a 
part  of  the  country,  the  foreign  is  ugly,  un- 
grammatical,  offensive. 

Another  quality  that  is  most  salient  is  the 
exceeding  unity  and  perfection  of  composi- 
[66] 


The  Later  Architecture  of  Japan 

tion  either  of  single  temples  or  of  whole 
groups,  either  of  the  exterior  or  the  interior. 
The  whole  thing  is  built  up  with  the  utmost 
subtlety  of  feeling  and  delicacy  of  apprecia- 
tion until  it  forms  a  consistent  and  united 
whole.  The  refinements  of  line  and  propor- 
tion have  their  equals  only  in  the  architec- 
ture of  Greece  and  medieval  Europe.  The 
mere  measuring  of  some  one  of  the  older 
buildings  reveals  a  subtlety  of  feeling  for 
proportion  that  is  amazing.  Such  measure- 
ments show  at  once  that  every  curve  and 
every  line  has  been  developed  with  the  most 
astonishing  care. 

Still  another  quality  that  could  be  studied 
to  advantage  is  that  of  the  extreme  solemnity 
of  the  temple  interiors.  For  impressiveness 
and  deeply  religious  feeling,  together  with 
extreme  splendour  of  colouring  and  wealth  of 
detail,  they  are  almost  unexcelled.  The 
Gothic  interiors  of  Europe  have  their  own 
quality  of  awe-inspiring  majesty  which  no 
[67] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

other  architecture  has  ever  approached,  but 
for  effects  of  dusky  splendour  Byzantine  and 
Japanese  architecture  stand  together. 

It  is  when  we  come  to  the  domestic  work  of 
Japan,  however,  that  we  find  more  in  the 
way  of  salutary  teaching.  Of  course  the 
Japanese  private  house  in  plan  and  con- 
struction is  utterly  foreign  to  Western  con- 
ditions and  requirements.  Indeed,  were  it 
not  for  the  amazing  hardiness  and  indiffer- 
ence to  cold  which  characterize  the  people, 
it  would  hardly  do  even  for  Japan,  for  it  is 
probably  a  development  from  Southern  types. 
For  a  tropical  climate  it  is  beyond  criticism, 
but  in  the  cold  winters  of  northern  Japan, 
it  leaves  much  to  be  desired.  It  has  certain 
qualities,  however,  that  we  could  imitate  to 
advantage.  One  of  these  is  the  perfect  sim- 
plicity of  each  room,  with  its  soft  mats,  its 
beautiful  wood,  its  subtle  colouring,  its  re- 
served and  satisfying  decoration.  A  Japanese 
room  is  full  of  repose,  and  after  one  has  come 
[68] 


The  Later  Architecture  of  Japan 

to  feel  these  qualities  fully,  one  remembers 
with  a  kind  of  horror  the  stuffy  chaos  of  the 
apartments  in  a  modern  American  dwelling. 
Perhaps  the  greatest  lesson  one  learns  in 
Japan  is  that  of  the  beauty  of  natural  wood, 
and  the  right  method  of  treating  it.  The 
universal  custom  of  the  West  has  been  to  look 
on  wood  as  a  convenient  medium  for  the 
obtaining  of  ornamental  forms  through  carv- 
ing and  joinery,  the  quality  of  the  material 
itself  being  seldom  considered.  In  Japan  the 
reverse  is  the  case.  In  domestic  work  a 
Japanese  builder  shrinks  from  anything  that 
would  draw  attention  from  the  beauty  of  his 
varied  woods.  He  treats  them  as  we  do 
precious  marbles,  and  one  is  forced  to  con- 
fess that  under  his  hand  wood  is  found  to  be 
quite  as  wonderful  a  material  as  our  expen- 
sive and  hardly  worked  marble.  In  Japan 
one  comes  to  the  final  conclusion  that  stains, 
paint,  and  varnish,  so  far  as  interior  work  is 
concerned,  are  nothing  short  of  artistic  crimes. 
[69] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

In  another  respect  Japanese  builders  are 
right  and  we  are  wrong.  They  do  not  destroy 
that  sense  of  protection  every  room  should 
possess,  by  filling  whole  sides  thereof  with 
plate  glass.  Instead  their  windows  are  of 
delicate  lattice  work  covered  with  translu- 
cent paper,  and  the  result  is  a  light  that  is 
soft  and  pleasant.  Nothing  can  be  more 
absurd  than  our  modern  fashion  of  filling 
an  entire  window  opening  with  one  or  two 
sheets  of  glass,  particularly  when,  as  happens 
in  cities,  there  is  no  possible  reason  for  look- 
ing out  of  doors. 

There  are  many  minor  lessons  of  similar 
nature  which  we  would  do  well  to  learn 
from  the  East,  and  these  lessons  it  is  per- 
fectly possible  to  take  to  heart  and  adapt, 
without  copying  the  qualities  which  are  ex- 
pressive of  a  civilization  radically  different  to 
ours.  Such  copying  would  be  affectation, 
but  the  profiting  by  the  lessons  set  before 
us  would  be  simple  common  sense. 
[70] 


CHAPTER    IV 
TEMPLES    AND    SHRINES 


THERE  is  a  certain  curious  attitude  of 
mind,  a  legacy  from  the  old  days 
when  the  mental  ports  of  the  West  were  as 
inexorably  barred  as  were  the  territorial  ports 
of  the  East,  that  still  continues  with  mis- 
directed fidelity  to  look  on  Buddhism  as 
simply  one  of  the  many  forms  of  horrid  idolatry 
lightly  to  be  overthrown  by  missionary  zeal, 
and  on  its  architectural  monuments,  the 
ancient  temples  that  still  stand  between  the 
western  waters  of  India  and  the  farthest  land 
of  Japan,  as  on  the  foolish  haltings  of  poor 
savages,  ethnically  interesting,  perhaps,  but 
most  improper,  and  reprehensible  to  all  right- 
minded  Christian  students. 
[71] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

There  is  another  that  abases  itself  before 
kakimono,  cloisonne  and  jade,  netsuke  and 
porcelain,  wood-carvings,  embroideries,  and 
lacquer,  finding  them  all  a  revelation  of  art, 
but  that  ignores  the  architecture  and  sculp- 
ture of  the  land  of  its  artistic  idolatry,  hold- 
ing it  strange,  and  therefore  impossible. 

As  a  religion  and  a  philosophy,  Buddhism 
brought  into  existence  the  brilliant  civiliza- 
tion that  expressed  itself  in  the  vigorous  and 
fanciful  character,  the  noble  feudalism,  and 
the  exquisite  art  of  Japan,  but  as  the  cathe- 
drals of  medieval  Europe  stand  closer  to 
their  inspiring  cause  than  the  industrial  art 
of  the  time,  so  do  the  temples  of  Japan  ex- 
press more  clearly  and  truly  the  power  that 
brought  them  into  being,  than  do  the  kaki- 
mono and  netsuke  that  have  monopolized 
the  admiration  of  students. 

We  are  permitted  to  believe  that  the  time 
is  at  hand  when  this  wonderful  people  is  to 
receive  from  the  West  the  final  gift  of  the 
[72] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

Catholic  faith,  but  if  this  gift  is  to  come  at  our 
hands,  we  must  understand  that  which  it  is  to 
supplant,  not  scorn  it;  we  must  meet  a  pagan 
but  lofty  civilization  on  its  own  ground,  and 
offer  our  gift,  not  as  to  a  barbarian  tribe  of 
African  fetish  worshipers,  but  as  the  Apostles 
offered  it  to  the  Athenians,  respecting  what 
they  had  come  to  destroy.  For  Japan  is  by 
no  means  a  Godless  nation;  she  is  possessed 
of  two  highly  developed  religious  systems, 
dwelling  side  by  side  in  perfect  harmony  — 
Shinto  and  Buddhism;  one  of  incalculable 
age,  with  a  thorough  system  of  Christian 
ethics,  and  laws  of  duty  and  obedience  that 
are  almost  without  rival  in  the  world  and  that 
have  justified  themselves  by  that  marvelous 
product,  Japanese  chivalry;  one,  also  vastly 
old,  though  dating  here  from  but  fourteen 
centuries  ago,  a  mystic  and  delicate  religious 
system,  a  philosophy  so  profound  and  at  the 
same  time  so  scientific  that  it  has  always 
commanded  the  deep  respect  of  all  Western 
[73] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

scholars.  Together  these  religions  have  built 
up  one  of  the  most  wonderful  of  nations, 
developed  a  character  of  exceeding  nobility, 
brought  into  existence  a  culture  and  an  artistic 
spirit  without  rivals,  created  and  maintained 
a  potent  and  penetrating  civilization. 

Thousands  of  temples  and  monasteries, 
tens  of  thousands  of  priests  and  religious  of 
both  sexes,  millions  of  adherents  of  every 
social  class,  a  vigour  of  devotion  that  has  just 
created  the  largest  and  most  costly  Buddhist 
temple  in  Japan,  little  shrines  in  every  house- 
hold, public  worship,  prayers  and  pilgrimages 
are  the  outward  manifestations  of  a  faith 
the  West  is  striving  to  supersede.  Such  an 
undertaking  calls  for  the  very  flower  of  Chris- 
tian civilization  to  match  the  descendants  of 
long  lines  of  knights  and  nobles,  many  of 
whom  have  obtained  degrees  at  Oxford  and 
Cambridge. 

Such  a  priest  I  had  the  privilege  of  know- 
ing in  Kyoto  at  the  great  temple  of  Nishi 
[74] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

Hongwanji,  founded  in  the  mid  thirteenth 
century  by  Kenshin  Daishi.  He  was  a  gradu- 
ate of  Oxford,  a  master  of  many  languages,  a 
careful  student  of  Herbert  Spencer,  a  scholar 
of  the  utmost  erudition,  of  noble  and  knightly 
blood,  a  living  exposition  of  high  breeding 
and  courtly  manners;  withal  a  poet,  a  philoso- 
pher, and  a  connoisseur. 

As  I  sat  before  this  calm  and  courtly  eccle- 
siastic, a  model  of  so  nearly  all  that  is 
admirable  in  men,  surrounded  by  the  master- 
pieces of  the  great  painters  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  it  was  impossible  to  refrain  from 
drawing  a  contrast  between  certain  of  the 
denominational  missionaries  I  had  met  and 
this  grave  representative  of  an  august  phi- 
losophy, with  his  slow  smile  and  his  un- 
fathomable eyes,  and  to  wonder  how  long 
it  would  take  the  man  of  the  West  to  con- 
vert him  of  the  East,  and  to  gather  into  his 
own  particular  fold  the  sheep  now  beneath 
the  care  of  the  priest  of  Nishi  Hongwanji. 
[75] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

To  understand  the  essential  qualities  either 
of  Buddhism  or  "The  Way  of  the  Gods"  is 
for  the  Western  mind  almost  an  impossibility; 
one  may  read  and  reread  the  Sutras  and  the 
Kojiki  and  strive  to  fathom  the  meaning  of 
the  commentators  thereon;  there  is  a  final 
secret,  the  soul  of  Buddhism,  that  has  never 
been  written  in  words,  for  it  cannot  be  ex- 
pressed so  to  the  intelligence,  and  there  is  a 
certain  quality  in  Shinto  that  finds  no  voicing 
in  its  visible  shape.  But  it  is  at  least  possible 
for  us  to  become  familiar  with  the  outward 
forms  of  this  faith,  the  temples,  the  sacred 
art,  the  liturgies  and  the  ritual,  and  through 
these  to  appreciate  in  a  measure  the  fact  that 
the  power  that  brought  them  into  being  was 
no  wile  of  Satan,  but  indeed  a  partial  mani- 
festation of  the  God  "Who  has  never  left 
Himself  without  a  witness." 

Japan  is  the  offspring  of  two  religions, 
Shinto  and  Buddhism:  the  first,  one  of  those 
forms  of  tribal  or  ethnic  religions  compounded 
[76] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

of  nature  and  ancestor  worship;  the  second  a 
most  exalted  form  of  spiritual  philosophy, 
probably  the  highest  that  man  has  ever 
achieved.  Under  the  sole  dominion  of  the 
first,  the  inhabitants  of  the  Japanese  archi- 
pelago had  made  no  very  startling  advance, 
but  they  had  been  prepared  for  the  coming 
of  the  vitalizing  fire  of  Buddhism,  the  ground 
had  been  made  ready,  the  seed  only  was 
wanting.  In  the  year  552  the  first  wave  of 
the  great  Buddhist  tide  of  missionary  activity 
touched  the  shores  of  Yamato  in  the  shape 
of  certain  Korean  priests  sent  by  the  King  of 
Kudara.  Forty  years  later  Prince  Shotoku 
Taishi,  regent  of  the  Empire  under  the 
Empress  Suiko,  accepted  the  new  faith,  and 
from  that  moment  civilization  began.  The 
great  monastery  of  Horiuji  was  the  first 
Buddhist  foundation,  and  it  was  completed 
substantially  in  its  present  shape  in  607. 
Although  built  wholly  of  wood,  three  of  the 
original  buildings  are  still  standing,  the  great 
[77] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

gate,  Azeku-no-mon,  the  main  temple  or 
Kondo,  and  the  pagoda  or  Go-ju-to.  The 
other  buildings,  though  restorations,  are 
accurate  reproductions  of  those  destroyed 
through  process  of  time. 

Architecturally  all  are  pure  Chino-Korean 
of  the  sixth  century,  one  of  the  most  ex- 
traordinary architectural  styles  in  the  world, 
for  it  is  the  counterpart  of  the  Romanesque 
of  the  south  of  France,  and  the  two  styles 
bear  exactly  the  same  relation  to  the  root 
style  of  Greece,  with  the  single  exception 
that  in  the  West  there  was  no  change  in 
materials,  while  in  the  East  there  was  a  re- 
version to  the  original  and  primitive  wood. 
From  Athens  to  Asia  Minor,  thence  to  Persia 
and  so  to  India,  architecture,  painting  and 
sculpture  worked  their  way  back  against  the 
sun  and  over  provinces  where  still  remained 
traces  of  enormously  ancient  civilization.  Bit 
by  bit  the  original  impulse  was  modified  and 
took  on  new  forms :  the  mysterious  and  mysti- 
[78] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

cal  East  entered  in,  dominated  and  revolu- 
tionized the  Hellenic  impulse,  and  at  last, 
when  the  great  progression  reached  China, 
the  genius  of  old  Cathay  brought  the  final 
change.  Mysticism  and  meditation,  the  soul 
of  the  infinite  East,  had  wrought  out  of  alien 
shards  its  own  intimate  and  exquisite  habili- 
ments. In  the  West  action  and  conduct  and 
the  spirit  of  innovation,  driven  by  dominant 
Christianity,  had  transmuted  the  original 
Greek  through  the  decadent  Roman,  into  the 
vigorous,  aggressive,  practical  Romanesque; 
in  the  East  mysticism  and  tradition,  guided 
by  the  subtleties  of  Buddhism,  had  wrought 
their  own  intimate  change. 

When  at  last  the  limit  of  land  was  reached 
and  the  advance  guard  of  the  new  life  of  the 
East  stood  on  the  shores  of  the  confining  sea, 
almost  the  last  vestige  of  Hellenic  forms  was 
gone,  and  only  in  the  entasis  of  the  columns 
of  the  great  gate  and  in  the  thin  folds  and 
studied  calmness  of  the  sculptured  drapery 
[79] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

of  the  statues  are  to  be  seen  the  lurking  traces 
of  Greek  art,  and  within  a  few  years  these 
also  were  to  disappear,  giving  free  field  for 
the  full  exercise  of  the  indigenous  Japanese 
spirit. 

These  few  little  temples  on  the  outskirts  of 
Nara  are  the  most  precious  architectural 
monuments  of  Japan:  together  with  the  mar- 
velous statues  of  their  own  and  the  succeed- 
ing century,  they  are  priceless  documents  in 
the  history  of  the  art  of  the  world.  From  the 
seventh  to  the  twelfth  centuries,  China  and 
Japan  stood  as  the  most  highly  civilized 
countries  of  the  globe,  and  therefore  their 
art  was  the  most  perfect  then  existing.  With 
the  development  of  monasticism  and  feudal- 
ism in  Europe,  Christian  civilization  took  the 
lead,  but  for  six  centuries  the  East  bore  the 
banner  of  art  and  civilization. 

It  is  in  this  light  that  we  must  consider  the 
art  of  Japan,  her  sculpture,  painting,  indus- 
trial art,  and  particularly  her  religious  archi- 
[80] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

lecture,  as  the  visible  expression  of  the  highest 
civilization  then  existing  in  the  world,  a  civili- 
zation that  was  brave,  loyal,  upright,  lofty  in 
its  ideals,  based  on  a  religion  and  a  philosophy 
that  were  in  their  esoteric  aspect  "mystic, 
wonderful,"  while  exoterically  they  were 
simple,  intimate,  and  comforting.  From  the 
standpoint  of  the  casual  traveler,  even  of 
the  architect,  Japanese  architecture  is  at  first 
absolutely  baffling;  it  is  like  Japanese  music, 
so  utterly  foreign,  so  radically  different  in  its 
genesis,  so  aloof  in  its  moods  and  motives 
from  the  standards  of  the  West,  that  for  a 
long  time  it  is  a  wonder  merely,  a  curiosity, 
a  toy  perhaps  or  a  sport  of  nature,  not  a  seri- 
ous product  of  the  human  mind,  a  priceless 
contribution  to  the  history  of  the  world. 
Partly  by  inheritance,  partly  by  education, 
we  have  been  qualified  for  thinking  in  one 
way,  and  in  one  way  only.  From  Athens 
through  Rome,  Byzantium,  the  Auvergne, 
Normandy,  the  He  de  France,  to  Yorkshire 
[81] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

and  Somerset,  there  is  running  an  easily 
traceable  thread  of  unbroken  continuity  of 
architectural  tradition,  but  from  Athens 
through  Ionia,  Persia,  Hindustan,  China,  and 
Korea,  to  Japan,  while  the  line  is  equally  con- 
tinuous, it  is  through  lands  aloof  and  barred, 
and  by  ways  that  are  blind  and  bewildering. 
We  can  think  forward  in  the  terms  of  the 
West,  we  can  hardly  think  backwards  in  the 
terms  of  the  mysterious  East. 

Yet  when  the  revolution  is  accomplished 
and  the  rebellious  mind  is  bent  to  the  un- 
familiar course,  this  strange  architecture  comes 
to  show  itself  in  its  true  light.  It  is  more 
nearly  Greek  than  any  other,  for  it  is  the  per- 
fecting of  a  single,  simple,  and  primitive  mass 
by  almost  infinite  refinements  of  line  and  pro- 
portion. The  Gothic  cathedrals  and  abbeys 
of  Europe  were  monuments  of  mighty  genius, 
unconsciously  created  under  the  influence  of 
overmastering  emotion:  the  temples  of  Horiuji, 
Nara,  Uji,  and  Kyoto  were  the  result  of  a  con- 
[82] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

scious  and  Hellenic  striving  for  the  ultimate 
perfection  in  line  and  curve  and  form.  Note 
in  the  pictures  of  Horiuji,  Uji,  Nara,  the 
sinuous  following  of  line,  the  steely  curves  of 
the  roofs,  the  massing  of  the  shadows,  the 
fretting  of  the  light  and  shade  —  they  are  all 
the  final  things;  beyond  them  is  no  further 
possibility.  There  is  nothing  in  the  Parthenon 
more  keenly  perfect  than  the  sweep  of  the 
roof  angles;  nothing  in  the  Erechtheon  more 
graceful  and  mobile  than  the  Imperial  pavil- 
ion of  the  Fujiwara,  now  the  Ho-o-do  of 
Byodo-in. 

But  there  is  a  greater  quality  in  these  early 
temples  than  these  that  are  purely  architec- 
tural; they  are  full  of  a  spiritual  import  that 
is  quite  overpowering.  They  breathe  mysti- 
cism and  abstraction,  they  are  dreamlike  and 
visionary.  Under  their  shadows  alone  could 
one  understand  a  little  of  Buddhism.  In  the 
vast  lines  of  their  sweeping  roofs,  in  the  ordered 
symmetry  of  their  sword-like  curves,  in  the 
[83] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

majesty  of  their  lines,  the  solemn  harmony 
of  their  composition,  there  is  so  much  of  the 
dim  and  occult  East  that  they  seize  upon  the 
imagination  like  some  subtle  enchantment. 
It  is  not  until  we  come  to  the  later  temples, 
those  of  the  Fujiwara,  Ashikaga,  and  Toku- 
gawa  Shogunates  that  we  find  the  wonderful 
interiors,  dim  and  silent,  sweet  with  incense 
and  splendid  with  the  glory  of  cinnabar  lacquer 
and  beaten  gold.  These  early  temples  are 
homely  and  barren  within,  gray  plaster  spotted 
with  ancient  Indian  frescoes  fading  softly 
away,  and  round  columns  of  bare,  unpolished 
wood.  A  jealous  government  has  removed 
the  greatest  of  the  statues,  and  only  a  few  are 
left  to  tell  the  tale  of  primal  glory. 

The  effect  comes  from  the  exterior  alone; 
and  here  if  we  can  once  disabuse  our  minds 
of  the  preconceptions  of  the  West,  it  is  power- 
ful and  direct.  Proportion,  composition,  and 
the  following  of  line,  these  are  the  three 
architectural  triumphs  of  the  Chino-Korean 
[84] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

architecture  of  Buddhism,  and  they  are  so 
victorious,  so  ultimate,  that  we  can  only 
admit  that  the  power  that  brought  them  into 
being  was  a  power  of  beneficence  and  might. 
When  Buddhism  came  to  Japan,  bringing 
a  highly  developed  style  of  architecture,  it 
found  the  racial  religion  housing  itself  in  huts 
barbarous  in  their  nature  and  differing  but 
slightly  from  the  rough  dwellings  of  the 
people;  walls  of  posts  and  planks  formed  the 
enclosure,  and  this  was  roofed  with  sloping 
poles  forming  a  steep  gable  and  projecting 
through  the  heavy  thatch  in  X  form.  The 
ridge  was  kept  in  place  by  transverse  logs  of 
unhewn  timber,  and  this  was,  so  far  as  we 
know,  absolutely  all.  The  temples  of  Ise,  the 
most  holy  of  the  Shinto  shrines,  are  supposed 
to  be  exact  copies  of  originals  built  long  be- 
fore the  Christian  era,  but  as  the  Shinto  law 
is  that  these  same  temples  must  be  razed  and 
reconstructed  every  twenty  years,  it  is  quite 
possible  that  modifications  may  have  occurred. 
[85] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

In  any  case  they  are  sufficiently  ugly  and 
barbarous. 

The  splendid  architecture  of  China  super- 
seded all  this  with  scant  delay,  and  scarcely 
an  hundred  years  after  the  building  of  the 
Horiuji  temples,  the  Japanese,  emancipated 
from  barbarism,  began  the  work  of  developing 
the  Chinese  style  on  their  own  lines.  The 
pagoda  of  Yakushi-ji  is,  I  think,  the  oldest 
existing  building  in  which  one  finds  the 
native  spirit  working  itself  out,  and  it  is  a 
very  wonderful  building  indeed,  brilliant  in 
its  conception,  radical  in  its  originality,  yet 
faithful  in  its  delicate  proportions  and  its 
masterly  composition  to  the  classical  type 
brought  from  the  continent. 

From  this  Yakushi-ji  pagoda  the  progress 
was  direct  and  unbroken  through  the  epochs 
of  Nara,  Kyoto,  Kamakura,  and  Yedo,  until 
it  culminated  and  ceased  in  the  overwrought 
shrines  of  Shiba  and  Nikko  and  Uyeno;  but 
simultaneously  and  amicably  a  more  or  less 
[86] 


Plate    XVII. — A    CONTEMPORARY    SHINTO    SHRINE. 


Temples  and  Shrines 

independent  style  was  developing  in  the 
shape  of  the  architecture  of  Shinto.  For  the 
new  religion  and  the  old  were  seldom  in- 
tolerant of  each  other.  Buddhism  very  wisely 
met  the  ethnic  religion  in  friendliness,  cast 
over  it  something  of  the  glory  of  its  philosophy 
and  the  sweetness  of  its  faith,  and  left  it  to 
follow  its  course,  which  it  forthwith  pro- 
ceeded to  do,  treading  obediently  in  the  steps 
of  the  greater  power  that  represented  the 
spiritual  achievements  of  all  Asia.  Little  by 
little  the  rude  contrivance  of  Ise  became 
transformed  into  the  comparative  elaboration 
of  Izumo,  and  for  centuries  Shinto  architec- 
ture differed  little  from  that  of  Buddhism 
beyond  the  fact  that  it  sternly  rejected  colour, 
that  it  was  always  parsimonious  in  its  giving 
of  carving  and  other  decoration,  that  it  re- 
fused roof  tiles  and  held  by  the  traditional 
thick  thatch  of  velvety  hinoki  bark,  and  that 
it  retained  the  semblance  of  the  X  rafters  and 
the  transverse  logs  of  the  ridge  (Plate  XVII). 
[87] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

Shinto  added  nothing  either  to  the  architec- 
ture of  Buddhism,  or  that  of  the  world,  for 
the  triumphant  torii,  one  of  the  most  perfectly 
simple,  exquisite,  and  classical  forms  ever 
evolved  in  the  art  of  building,  is  the  creation 
of  Ryobu-shinto,  in  other  words,  of  Bud- 
dhism. The  primitive  torii  was  simply  two 
vertical  posts  connected  at  the  top  by  a  cross 
beam,  all  of  unhewn  wood:  it  possessed  no 
element  of  beauty  whatever.  Buddhism,  pro- 
foundly, monumently  wise,  recognizing  the 
indestructible  power  of  immemorial  tradition, 
made  no  attempt  to  sweep  away  the  primi- 
tive cult,  but  accepted  it,  metamorphosed  it, 
cast  around  it  the  glory  of  its  own  supreme 
spirituality  —  and  won  the  whole  nation. 
The  torii  (Plate  XVIII),  no  longer  a  perch 
for  sacrificial  fowl,  ugly  and  barbarous  in 
its  details,  became  the  symbol  of  all  that  is 
sacred,  and  in  its  exquisite  proportions  and 
subtle  lines  it  is  wholly  worthy  of  its  new 
function. 

[88] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

I  may  be  wrong,  but  it  seems  to  me  that 
there  is  a  lesson  here  for  us.  We  send  our 
worthy  missionaries  to  Japan,  and  so  far  as 
those  of  the  Protestant  denominations  are 
concerned,  they  only  too  often  begin  by  con- 
demning as  entirely  damnable  every  truth 
as  well  as  every  pious  practise  of  Shinto  and 
Buddhism.  This  means  absolute  failure, 
and  for  just  so  long  as  this  course  is  pur- 
sued. The  whole  civilization  of  Japan,  and 
the  fundamental  character  of  its  people, 
are  the  product  of  Shinto  and  of  Buddhism. 
No  group  of  missionaries  can  destroy  these 
in  ten  thousand  years.  Now  a  good  half  of 
Shinto,  and  even  more  of  Buddhism,  are 
wholesome,  helpful,  and  true:  still  more  is 
capable  of  modification  to  bring  it  into  har- 
mony with  Christianity.  Let  us  accept  these 
things,  win  confidence  by  our  charity,  and  lit- 
tle by  little  bring  the  desired  reforms  to  pass. 
Let  us  take  the  rude  "bird  rest"  and  change 
it  into  the  glorified  torii.  In  twenty  years 
[89] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

Japan  would  be  a  Christian  nation,  still  pos- 
sessing the  splendid  qualities  of  her  national 
character  that  we  should  try  to  supplement, 
not  to  supplant. 

It  is  a  great  artistic  catastrophe  that  an 
inordinate  passion  for  fighting  on  the  part 
of  the  strenuous  Japanese,  coupled  with  the 
perishable  nature  of  their  building  materials, 
should  have  resulted  in  the  almost  total  de- 
struction of  the  religious  architecture  that 
came  into  existence  between  the  last  years  of 
the  seventh  century  and  the  first  year  of  the 
seventeenth.  From  the  great  Fujiwara  or 
Kyoto  period,  extending  from  A.D.  700  to  the 
triumph  of  Yoritomo  in  1192,  nothing  what- 
ever remains  except  the  marvelous  Ho-o-do 
of  Byodo-in  at  Uji.  This  exquisite  "Phoenix 
Hall,"  originally  a  pleasure  pavilion  of  the 
splendid  Shogun,  is  now  a  temple;  and  as 
one  first  sees  it  in  the  dusk  of  early  evening 
perhaps,  rising  above  the  dark  little  tarn 
clogged  with  pale  iris,  it  seems  like  a  dream 
[90] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

or  some  magical  fancy  of  Kublai  Khan.  It 
is  a  figment  of  the  imagination,  not  a  solid 
fabric  in  time  and  space.  Viewed  archi- 
tecturally it  reaches  the  highest  level  in  point 
of  composition  and  design,  taking  place  with 
St.  Mark's  in  Venice,  Gloucester  Cathedral, 
and  the  Taj  Mahal.  Soberness  and  restraint 
form  its  solid  foundation,  the  subtlest  feeling 
for  curve-composition  vitalizes  it  into  being, 
and  delicate  fancy  glorifies  it  as  a  garment. 
Once  the  central  hall  was  one  wealth  of  in- 
crustation, ebony,  ivory,  silver,  mother  of 
pearl:  now  it  is  crumbling  and  desolate,  traces 
only  of  decoration  clinging  to  the  walls  and 
fretted  ceiling.  What  Japan  must  have  been 
in  the  thousand  years  of  the  great  Fujiwara 
dynasty  we  can  only  conjecture  from  this  one 
priceless  building,  rising  like  the  ghost  of  an 
empire  from  the  tea  fields  of  Uji. 

In  Kyoto  itself  three  temples  only  still  stand 
as  records  of  the  next  two  Shogunates  —  the 
San-ju-san-gen-do,  built  in  1266  and  restored 
[91] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

in  1662,  an  inferior  and  valueless  structure  at 
best,  and  the  Ginkaku-ji  and  Kinkaku-ji,  the 
last  two  pleasure  pavilions  of  the  Ashikaga 
Shoguns.  Graceful  and  pleasing  as  they  are, 
they  are  too  playful,  too  essentially  domestic 
in  their  style,  to  serve  as  any  indication  of  the 
temple  architecture  of  the  time.  Such  temples 
as  there  are  that  date  from  this  period,  chiefly 
those  of  Kamakura  and  its  environs,  have 
been  too  completely  restored  and  rebuilt  to 
serve  any  useful  purpose,  and  we  must  come 
down  another  century  to  the  year  1603,  when 
lyeasu  founded  the  Tokugawa  Shogunate 
and  transferred  his  capital  to  Yedo. 

From  the  two  centuries  following  this  date 
come  practically  all  the  existing  temples,  and 
they  are  legion:  in  style  they  are  very  varied, 
from  classical  simplicity  to  a  degree  of  gor- 
geous elaboration  that  is  almost  inconceivable; 
from  an  affected  reversion  to  Chinese  and 
Korean  types  to  a  daring  originality  that  is 
without  precedent.  In  one  town  we  shall 
[92] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

find  a  vast  and  imposing  structure  barren  of 
colour,  sparingly  touched  with  carving;  in 
another  a  little  shrine  riotous  in  sculptured 
wood  and  covered,  every  inch  of  it,  with 
blazing  colour  and  lacquer  of  gold  and  ebony 
and  cinnabar.  For  three  fourths  of  this  epoch 
of  two  centuries  the  old  laws  of  proportion 
and  composition  held  in  force,  and  during  this 
time  the  Tokugawa  temples  were  almost 
worthy  of  equal  honour  with  those  of  the 
seventh  and  thirteenth  centuries. 

Broadly  speaking,  they  fall  into  three 
stylistic  classes,  Enryaku,  Ashikaga,  and 
Tokugawa  proper.  The  Enryaku  style  (Plate 
XIX)  is  one  based  with  more  or  less  accuracy 
on  the  traditions  and  drawings  of  the  temples 
built  at  the  beginning  of  the  Kyoto  era  by  the 
Mikado  Kwammu.  This  is  that  style  de- 
veloped by  the  Japanese  themselves  from  the 
Chinese  norm  introduced  two  centuries  earlier. 
The  buildings  are  low  and  comparatively 
simple;  there  is  no  carving  or  painted  decora- 
[93] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

tion,  and  the  colour  is  the  simplest;  pure 
white  plaster  and  wood  painted  with  red  oxide 
of  lead.  This  was  the  favourite  style  of  the 
temples  of  the  Ryobu-Shinto  sect,  a  friendly 
and  philosophical  amalgamation  of  Shinto 
and  Buddhist  theology,  swept  away  about  a 
century  ago  by  a  curious  and  fantastic  move- 
ment toward  the  restoration  of  "pure  Shinto." 
Many  of  the  shrines  and  temples  still  stand, 
however,  though  shorn  of  the  richness  of 
accessories  and  ritual  borrowed  from  Bud- 
dhism. The  Kasuga  temples  of  Nara  are 
fine  examples  of  this  style;  and  as  their  flam- 
ing white  and  red  flashes  out  in  the  midst  of 
the  enormous  cedar  trees,  hung  with  fes- 
toons of  purple  wistaria,  they  are  certainly 
picturesque  and  even  beautiful.  (Plate  XX.) 
The  Ashikaga  temples  are  those  that  in 
their  largeness  of  parts,  their  grandeur  of 
proportion,  and  their  reliance  on  carving  for 
their  decoration,  hark  back  to  the  reserved 
work  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries. 
[94] 


Plate  XX. — KASUGA  GATE,  NARA. 


Temples  and  Shrines 

This  is  the  favourite  style  of  the  Shin,  the 
greatest  of  all  the  Buddhist  sects  and  dating 
from  the  year  1224.  The  Higashi  Hongwanji 
in  Nagoya,  and  the  great  new  temple  of  the 
same  sect  in  Kyoto,  serve  to  show  the  grandeur, 
even  the  sublimity,  of  these  mighty  structures. 
The  great  gates  in  this  particular  style  are 
perhaps  the  most  noble  of  all  the  different 
buildings.  It  really  seems  as  though  the 
perfection  of  composition,  the  subtle  relation 
of  parts  and  rhythm  of  line,  had  been  achieved 
in  these  monumental  gates. 

More  than  any  other  of  the  Japanese 
architectural  styles  this  development  of  the 
Ashikaga  model  seems  to  be  the  perfect 
translation  into  visible  form  of  the  spirit  of 
Japanese  feudalism  and  the  equally  perfect 
development  of  structural  form  from  the 
qualities  of  the  natural  environment.  The 
connection  between  these  brown  and  gray 
temples  and  the  forests  and  fields,  rocks  and 
rivers  and  mountains,  is  intimate  and  exact: 
[95] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

as  the  castles  and  abbeys  of  England  blend 
with  her  landscape  and  her  air,  as  the  nacre- 
ous palaces  and  shrines  of  Venice  grow  out 
of  the  opal  sea,  as  the  hot  sandstone  fortresses 
of  Hindustan  rear  their  blistered  walls  from 
the  desert  sands,  or  the  marble  miracles  of 
tomb  and  pleasure  house  flash  above  still 
pools  and  in  the  midst  of  tropical  gardens, 
so,  and  with  equal  intimacy,  do  these  brown 
and  weathered  temples  rest  in  the  purple 
shadow  of  gnarled  cryptomeria  or  lift  them- 
selves from  the  shoulders  of  deep-wooded 
hills.  With  infinite  craft,  priests  and  artists 
and  gardeners  have  wrought  a  perfect  set- 
ting for  their  shrines,  piling  long  flights  of 
stone  steps  up  the  broken  hillsides,  raising 
ramparts  and  terraces,  training  the  willing 
trees  into  strange  architectural  forms,  blend- 
ing the  whole  as  a  painter  blends  his  colours, 
composing  the  lines  and  masses  as  he  builds 
his  pictorial  masterpiece. 

With  the  third   and  most  sumptuous  de- 
[96] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

velopment  of  architecture,  or  rather  decora- 
tion, the  true  Tokugawa  style,  the  last  de- 
velopment from  the  distant  Chino-Korean 
norm,  far  back  in  the  beginnings  of  things,  a 
thousand  years  ago,  culminated  and  crumbled 
away.  Japanese  civilization  had  always  ex- 
pressed itself  in  some  chosen  form  of  art: 
first  of  all  in  sculpture;  then,  a  little  later, 
during  the  last  half  of  the  Fujiwara  Shogunate, 
in  literature;  then  in  architecture,  under  the 
Hojo  and  early  Ashikaga;  then  in  painting 
for  the  last  half  of  the  latter  dynasty;  and 
finally,  in  decoration  combined  with  paint- 
ing, for  the  first  half  of  the  Tokugawa  regime. 
For  two  and  a  half  centuries,  from  1400  to 
1650,  from  Cho-Densu  to  Korin,  Japanese 
painting  had  followed  a  course  of  almost  un- 
exampled glory.  Sesshu,  Josetu,  Shubun,  the 
immortal  Kano  Motonubu  and  the  four  other 
masters  of  the  same  wonderful  house,  to- 
gether with  scores  of  lesser  men,  had  raised 
Japan  to  the  very  highest  plane  among  artistic 
[97] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

nations.  Unkei  and  Hidari  Jingoro  had  made 
of  wood-carving  a  fine  art,  not  unworthy  to 
stand  with  the  contemporary  painting.  To- 
gether, these  two  arts  were  in  the  constant 
service  of  architecture  and  there  came  a  com- 
plete and  radical  change  in  religious  build- 
ing: from  the  palaces  of  the  Mikado  and  the 
nobles  the  splendid  screens  and  wall  paintings, 
kakimono  and  ramma,  crept  into  the  monas- 
teries and  so  into  the  temples  themselves. 
Gold  leaf  and  burnished  lacquer  took  the 
place  of  natural  wood  and  dull  colour  decora- 
tion: carved  cinnabar  lacquer  and  elaborate 
metal  work  engulfed  the  altars  and  shrines, 
and  Japanese  architecture  burst  from  its 
brown  chrysalis  a  flaunting  butterfly  painted 
with  the  hues  of  dreams. 

Apart  from  St.  Mark's  in  Venice  and  the 
Capella  Palatina  in  Palermo,  I  know  of  no 
religious  interiors  that  can  vie  with  such  caves 
of  glory  as  Chion-in.  (Plate  XXI.)  Words 
simply  fail  when  an  attempt  is  made  to 

[98] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

describe  the  unparalleled  splendour  of  such 
temples.  Black  lacquer  and  gold  and  cinna- 
bar; chiseled  baldachinos  of  exquisite  metal 
work;  massive  ropes  and  tassels  of  blood-red 
silk;  censers  of  gold  and  silver  and  bronze; 
great  lotus  plants  sheeted  with  beaten  gold; 
vestments  of  stiff  brocade  heavy  with  massed 
embroidery;  deep-tongued  bells,  sonorous 
drums;  strange,  unearthly  chanting  of  ton- 
sured bonzes ;  clouds  of  pale  incense  —  it  is 
all  like  some  vision  out  of  the  mysterious,  in- 
tangible past,  aloof,  unapproachable. 

And  nowhere,  not  for  one  minute  fraction 
of  an  inch,  is  there  any  failure  of  faultless 
art.  In  St.  Mark's  are  tawdry  anilin  paper 
flowers  against  the  pala  d'oro.  Our  Lady  of 
Chartres  is  decked  out  in  cheap  finery  of  the 
theatrical  costumer.  St.  Albans  cathedral  is 
desecrated  by  the  Brumagem  "Gothic"  of 
the  modern  Vandal,  the  late  Lord  Grim- 
thorpe ;  but  here  in  Japan,  where,  with 
corrugated  iron  chapels  and  trade  altar 
[99] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

ornaments  we  are  doing  what  we  can  in  a 
religious  way  to  paralyze  the  art  instinct  of 
the  last  artistic  people  in  the  world,  the 
temples  themselves  still  remain  virgin  and 
undefiled.  If  a  man  wants  to  see  what  good 
art  can  mean  and  be  when  it  is  unspotted  by 
modernism,  he  must  go,  not  to  Italy,  or  France 
or  England,  but  to  the  Buddhist  temples  of 
Japan.  (See  Plate  XXII.) 

When  lyeasu,  the  founder  and  first  Shogun 
of  the  Tokugawa  dynasty,  died,  his  son 
lyemitsu  began  the  erection  of  the  tombs  and 
shrines  of  Nikko  (Plate  XXIII),  the  last  word 
of  religious  architecture  in  Japan.  With  the 
temples  of  Shiba  and  TJyeno  and  Tokyo  they 
form  an  episode  in  themselves,  unhealthy, 
exotic,  decadent.  That  they  are  in  a  way 
supremely  beautiful  is  perfectly  true  —  they 
are  the  apotheosis  of  coloured  and  carved 
decoration;  but  it  is  beauty  gone  mad,  and 
bursting  beyond  all  bounds.  It  was  precisely 
what  was  happening  in  the  West,  luxury 
[100] 


Temples  and  Shrines 

sucking  the  heart  out  of  art,  the  fire  of  genius 
burning  itself  away  in  the  enormous  pageant 
of  a  palpitating  aurora.  The  glory  was  un- 
speakable, but  the  ashes  that  remained  were 
dry  and  dead.  The  fire  had  burned  itself 
out. 

Then  came  the  opening  of  the  ports,  the 
revolution,  the  restoration  of  the  Mikado,  the 
abolition  of  feudalism,  the  disestablishment 
of  Buddhism,  the  rehabilitation  of  the  Shinto 
anomaly,  and  the  Constitution.  Feudal  and 
Buddhist  civilization  crumbled,  and  nothing 
permanent  seemed  to  take  its  place.  Occi- 
dentalism became  a  Black  Death  to  the  arts 
of  Japan,  and  for  a  time  the  outlook  was 
dreary  indeed.  Latterly,  however,  things  are 
brightening  a  little.  Buddhism  is  pulling  it- 
self together  and  becoming  aggressive.  Shinto 
in  its  religious  aspect  is  becoming  little  more 
than  an  edict.  There  is  a  healthy  rebellion 
against  Western  canons  of  painting,  and  a 
few  strong  men  are  carefully  gathering  up  the 
[ 101 ]  ' 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

scattered  shards  of  the  past,  nourishing  the 
flickering  fires  of  art  that  had  not  wholly  died 
away.  There  is  a  strong  revulsion  of  feeling 
toward  the  good  artistic  models  of  a  few  cen- 
turies ago.  From  this  will  result  one  of  two 
things,  either  an  archeological  Frankenstein, 
soulless,  dead,  doomed  to  sudden  extinction, 
or  a  knitting  up  of  the  raveled  cord  of  history; 
a  new  lease  of  life  for  artistic  Japan,  a  new 
era  of  esthetic  glory.  At  present  it  is  im- 
possible to  say  what  will  be  the  issue. 


[102] 


CHAPTER  V 
TEMPLE  GARDENS 


IN  the  dim  gardens  of  moldering  Buddhist 
monasteries  one  may  still  find,  as  in  the 
temples  themselves,  hints  of  the  old  Japan. 
The  sacred  tradition  that  has  preserved  the 
original  forms  of  eighth  century  architecture 
through  a  long  sequence  of  structures  built 
only  to  be  consumed  and  again  restored,  has 
held  as  well  in  the  surrounding  gardens,  and 
though  nothing  may  remain  of  the  ancient 
originals,  save  only  the  fantastic  stones  (far- 
sought  and  eagerly  treasured),  the  curves  of 
the  walks  are  still  the  same,  the  placing  of 
the  shrubs  and  flowers  and  gnarled,  dwarf 
trees  unchanged,  and  even  the  patterns  traced 
in  the  silver  sand  are  the  patterns  of  long  ago. 
[103] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

They  are  very  fascinating,  these  temple 
gardens,  and  they  have  a  character  wonderful 
in  its  diversity.  Sometimes  they  are  nothing 
more  than  the  necessary  fore-courts  of  minor 
temples:  a  terrace,  a  few  steps,  a  lantern  or 
two  (Plate  XXV),  a  grinning  stone  dog  or 
benignant  image  of  Jizo  "The  Helper,"  and 
perhaps  a  crabbed  tree  or  bush  of  scented 
box.  Then  they  become  solemn  and  ghostly 
graveyards  crowded  with  ranks  of  gray  and 
moss-covered  monuments  of  strangely  beauti- 
ful shapes,  leaning,  all  of  them,  from  the 
jostling  of  endless  earthquakes;  the  newer 
ones  —  yes,  and  some  of  those  hoary  with 
antiquity  —  blurred  by  the  thin  smoke  of 
burning  incense  sticks  and  fronted  by  sec- 
tions of  bamboo  holding  freshly  cut  flowers. 
Again  they  blossom  into  the  full  glory  of  the 
stately  and  hieratic  garden,  the  domain  of 
nature  glorified  by  consummate  art,  where 
rocks  and  sand  and  water,  lotus,  iris,  peony, 
azalea  and  the  royal  fuji,  box  and  maple,  pine 
[104] 


Temple  Gardens 

and  cherry,  are  all  blended  into  one  wonder- 
ful setting  for  the  scarlet  temple  that  flames 
in  the  midst  against  its  background  of  forest 
or  serrated  hill. 

Yet,  whatever  its  estate,  the  temple  garden 
is  less  a  pleasaunce  than  a  framework;  it  is 
like  every  good  garden,  a  modulation  from 
pure  nature  to  pure  art.  In  the  old  temple  of 
Horenji  at  Shiogama  (Plate  XXIV),  you  may 
see  how  finely  everything  leads  up  to  the 
lofty  temple,  and  the  effect  must  have  been 
finer  yet  when  the  shrine  was  still  Buddhist 
and  before  the  Shinto  priests  who  now  control 
it  raised  the  rather  clumsy  torii  at  the  foot 
of  the  dizzy  flight  of  steps.  Again  at  Nara, 
rocks,  box,  lotus,  palm,  and  pine  are  all  placed 
just  where  they  will  do  most  honour  to  the 
temple  itself,  and  together  with  this  compose 
into  the  picture  that  is  perfect  and  complete. 

A  picture  always,  you  must  note:  line, 
texture,  form  and  colour,  all  are  duly  and 
delicately  considered,  and  a  space  of  garden 
[105] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

is  composed  with  all  the  laborious  study  that 
goes  to  the  making  of  a  screen  or  kakimono. 
How  perfectly  the  whole  thing  composes  at 
Narita  (Plate  XXVI),  the  curve  of  the  bridge, 
the  sharp  angle  of  the  steps,  the  convolutions 
of  volcanic  rock,  the  clean  cleavages  of  the 
slate  chased  with  exquisite  ideography;  and 
in  colour,  silver  gray  slate  stones  and  lichened 
granite,  green  bronze,  and  the  deeper  green  of 
cryptomeria  leaves.  Or  again  in  the  shrines 
of  Uyeno  consider  how  wisely  the  garden  it- 
self is  reduced  to  the  simplest  forms,  gravel 
and  flat  stones  and  a  few  big  bronze  lanterns. 
Here  the  cherry  trees  are  supreme  and  they 
are  given  full  sway;  flowers  and  shrubs  are 
banished  for  they  are  unnecessary.  The 
great  trees  do  their  full  work;  yet  this  is  good 
gardening,  and  quite  as  legitimate  as  would 
be  the  case  were  all  the  flowers  of  the  earth 
brought  under  requisition. 

A  Japanese  gardener  can  work  with  any- 
thing —  or  almost  nothing. 

[106] 


Plate  XXVI. — NARITA  STEPS. 


Temple  Gardens 

There  is  a  legend  of  a  royal  garden,  built 
long  ago  by  a  man  who  gave  to  the  task,  ten 
years  of  his  life  and  half  the  wealth  of  a 
great  daimyo,  a  garden  that  appealed  to  every 
varying  emotion  of  the  soul,  and  worked  its 
will  like  a  great  symphony,  where  only  one 
of  the  products  of  the  earth  was  employed, 
and  that  was  simply  and  only  —  rocks.  Even 
now  these  are  sought  carefully  from  every 
province,  and  some  curious  or  beautiful  speci- 
men is  hoarded  like  a  jewel.  How  valuable, 
indeed  how  quite  indispensable  these  may  be, 
can  be  seen,  though  imperfectly,  from  almost 
any  of  the  illustrations,  particularly  from 
those  of  Ishi-yama-dera.  (Plate  XXVII.) 
The  name  of  this  ancient  temple  on  Lake 
Biwa  means  simply,  "The  Temple  of  the 
Rocky  Mountain,"  for  there  is  a  curious 
outcropping  here  of  black  and  contorted 
basalt,  and  every  crag  has  been  used  as  part 
of  a  scheme  of  gardening. 

It  would  be  hard  to  imagine  anything  more 
[107] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

delicate  and  crafty  than  the  manner  in  which 
the  monks  have  built  up  their  picture.  Every 
native  quality  of  the  rock  is  emphasized  and 
its  effect  enhanced  by  a  clever  and  ingenious 
art.  The  smooth  foreground  of  shining  sand, 
the  fluffy  green  of  the  forest,  the  soft  verdure 
of  delicate  shrubs  sprouting  from  rocky  crev- 
ices, the  smooth  velvet  of  hinoki  thatch  and 
weathered  wood,  the  clean  angles  of  chiseled 
stone,  all  these  things  are  handled  like  the 
colours  of  a  painter's  palette,  they  are  placed 
with  discretion,  fused  and  blended,  and  finally 
composed  into  perfectly  united  wholes. 

Almost  every  temple  garden  has  a  peculiar 
quality,  some  one  feature  that  is  dominant 
and  sets  the  keynote,  as  it  were.  Here  at 
Ishiyama  it  is  volcanic  rock,  in  Uyeno  it  is 
the  cherry,  at  Kamakura  the  lotus,  at  Nara 
the  purple  fuji,  at  Nikko  druidic  cryptomeria 
guard  the  shrines  of  the  dead  Shogun.  At 
the  Nishi  Hongwanji  in  Kyoto,  again,  water 
seems  almost  to  play  the  principal  part,  while 
[108] 


Temple  Gardens 

at  the  gardens  of  the  Ginkakuji  it  is  white 
sand  wrought  into  mounds  and  delicate  pave- 
ment patterns.  Here  is  "The  Platform  of 
Silver  Sand"  and  beyond  it  "The  Mound 
that  Looks  Toward  the  Moon"  consecrated 
by  the  lordly  Yoshimasa  and  still  heaped  as 
for  the  great  Shogun's  enthronement,  though 
four  centuries  and  more  have  passed  since 
he  became  one  with  the  gods. 

Whatever  the  keynote  it  holds  throughout 
the  composition,  as  at  Shiogama  the  tall  gray 
masts  of  the  cryptomeria  are  echoed  and 
emphasized  by  the  vanishing  lines  of  the 
enormous  steps,  the  slim  verticals  of  the  white 
staffs,  and  the  uprights  of  the  granite  torii. 

And  how  wonderful  a  thing  in  itself  is  this 
same  consummate  form  of  the  torii.  It  is  the 
noblest  and  simplest  gateway  ever  devised 
and  it  adds  a  crowning  touch  to  many  a  temple 
garden,  though  it  is  the  sign  of  religious  and 
philosophical  primitivism.  When  scores  of 
these  vermilion  torii  are  grouped  together 
[109] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

over  gray  stone  steps  in  the  midst  of  bronze- 
green  cryptomeria,  the  effect  is  one  of  splendid 
colour  hardly  to  be  matched  elsewhere. 

It  is  not  around  the  great  and  famous 
temples  that  one  finds  the  most  alluring  gar- 
dens, but  in  out-of-the-way  spots,  in  forgotten 
valleys  where  foreign  feet  have  seldom  trod. 
Across  the  river  from  Uji  I  found  one  such 
garden  in  an  hill  temple  I  had  never  heard 
named  before,  Koshoji.  There  is  a  river 
road  up  to  where  the  tumbling  Ujigawa  bursts 
through  a  cleft  in  the  hills,  and  following  this 
one  suddenly  comes  upon  a  long  straight 
path  cut  through  dense  black  trees,  rising 
steep  from  the  river,  and  closed  at  the  summit 
by  a  gleaming  white  Korean  gateway.  (Plate 
XXVIII.)  As  one  approaches,  nothing  is 
visible  but  this  same  gate  with  its  arched 
opening  in  the  white  plastered  base,  sur- 
mounted by  the  intricate  bracketing  of  its 
curved  roof,  long,  plastered  walls  reaching 
away  on  either  hand,  and  above,  the  low 
[110] 


X 


Temple  Gardens 

sweeping  roofs  of  gray-green  tile,  and,  in 
April,  as  when  I  saw  it,  a  great  cloud  of  pink 
vapour  poised  over  all,  the  amazing  blossom- 
ing of  an  ancient  cherry. 

One  comes  out  from  under  the  white  arch 
with  a  sudden  catching  of  the  breath.  It  is 
not  a  large  temple,  indeed  it  is  hardly  more 
than  a  toy,  one  of  those  still,  little  monasteries 
asleep  in  a  forgotten  eddy  of  the  turbulent 
river  of  change;  but  it  is  the  more  charm- 
ing for  all  that.  The  Nishi  and  Higashi 
Hongwanji  temples  of  Kyoto,  the  almost 
terrifying  monster  belonging  to  the  latter  sect 
in  Nagoya,  the  complex  and  amazingly  elabo- 
rate Obaku-san  just  a  little  way  down  the 
river,  these  vast  and  ceremonious  structures 
crush  one  with  the  very  majesty  of  their  noble 
architecture;  but  for  charm  and  fascination 
and  keen  appeal,  one  must  search  out  tiny 
sanctuaries  like  this  of  Koshoji. 

One  enters  first  a  little  fore-court  sur- 
rounded by  buildings  on  three  sides,  the 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

fourth  being  filled  by  the  wall  and  gateway. 
(Plate  XXVIII.)  The  hondo  or  preaching 
hall  is  in  front,  a  low  simple  building;  on  the 
left  is  the  residence,  on  the  right  the  library 
and  the  bell  cage.  All  the  buildings  are 
raised  on  low  stone-walled  terraces:  there  are 
few  flowers,  and  the  gardening  is  made  up 
almost  wholly  of  box  and  white  sand.  Of 
course  there  is  the  great  pink  tree,  but  its 
glory  lasts  for  a  short  ten  days  in  the  spring, 
and  for  the  rest  of  the  year  the  scented  box 
is  supreme.  Nothing  could  be  finer  than 
these  great  rounded  masses  of  bronze  green: 
they  rise  from  the  white  sand  like  tropical 
islands  from  a  phosphorescent  sea,  and  their 
clean-cut  contours  come  crisp  and  fine  against 
the  pearly  plaster  of  the  convent  walls. 

In  this  fore-court  all  is  trim  and  formal, 
but  if  you  pass  through  a  little  gate  in  the 
farther  left-hand  corner,  you  come  upon  a 
very  different  scene.  (Plate  XXIX.)  Here 
everything  is  wildly  picturesque,  though  still 


Plate  XXIXa. — THE  FORE-COURT,  KOSHOJI. 


Plate  XXIXfc. — KOSHOJI  GARDEN*. 


Temple  Gardens 

on  a  tiny  scale ;  the  monastic  buildings  wander 
off  at  all  angles  until  they  are  brought  up 
standing  against  the  wall  of  a  beetling  hill 
from  which  the  trees  lean  down,  thrusting 
their  twisted  branches  out  over  the  tiled  roofs 
with  their  long,  keen  curves.  From  under 
the  very  temple,  it  seems,  springs  a  minute 
mountain  torrent  threading  its  way  through 
the  midst  of  the  garden  at  the  bottom  of  a 
Lilliputian  crevasse.  Toy  stone  bridges  are 
flung  across  it,  little  trees  twisted  into  most 
impossible  curves  and  angles  jut  from  its 
banks,  velvety  box  runs  along  the  mossy 
stone  embankment,  and  strange  little  wild 
flowers  seek  the  edge  of  the  water.  There 
are  bronze  lanterns  and  vases  also,  and  on 
the  farther  side  the  moss-blackened  grave- 
stones begin  and  lead  one  away  over  the  flat 
stepping  stones  to  the  hill  base,  then  up  the 
slope  where  the  whole  forest  is  full  of  similar 
memorials  of  the  dead. 

This  Koshoji  is  full  of  some  kind  of  en- 
[113] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

chantment,  once  there  one  would  never  leave. 
We  had  heard  each  evening  down  at  our  inn 
at  Uji  (our  inn  that  was  built  far  back  in  .he 
days  of  Hideyoshi)  the  velvety  boom  of  some 
enormous  bell,  a  sound  that  seemed  to  draw 
one  irresistibly  to  rise  up  in  the  still  night 
and  search  for  its  source  under  the  great,  pale 
moon.  In  Koshoji  we  found  the  bell,  and 
much  more;  a  little  oasis  in  the  desert  of 
steam  trams  and  beer  and  liberal  politics, 
and  we  wanted  to  stay  there  forever.  The 
old  Japan  has  this  charm,  and  I  think 
it  concentrates  itself  and  becomes  really 
quite  irresistible,  in  the  form  of  a  scented 
temple  garden  in  some  forgotten  monas- 
tery, where  the  odour  of  incense  mingles 
with  that  of  box,  where  the  patterned  sand 
retains  the  lines  of  a  thousand  years  ago, 
where  tonsured  bonzes  in  yellow  robes  move 
silently  through  the  shed  petals  of  a  pink 
cherry,  and  a  thunderous  bell  gives  tongue 
at  the  rising  of  the  moon. 
[114] 


CHAPTER    VI 
DOMESTIC    INTERIORS 


WHILE  in  public  architecture,  in  paint- 
ing and  sculpture,  in  the  industrial 
arts,  and  even  in  the  greater  part  of  the 
domestic  architecture  of  the  better  class, 
Japan  is  fast  losing  all  national  quality,  the 
houses  of  the  lower  and  middle  classes  still 
preserve  the  beautiful  characteristics  of  the 
old  art,  so  unique,  so  refined,  so  wholly  ethnic 
and  national. 

The  nobles  are  making  themselves  un- 
comfortable and  absurd  in  preposterous  struc- 
tures designed  by  third-rate  English  and 
German  architects,  and  the  same  agency  is 
responsible  for  shocking  public  buildings,  vast 
in  size,  fearful  and  humiliating  in  design. 
[115] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

Each  year  exhibitions  are  held  in  Uyeno 
Park  where  the  pitiful  attempts  of  Orientals 
to  copy  European  modes  of  painting  are 
held  up  to  the  awestruck  admiration  of 
those  that  short-sightedly  desire  the  death 
of  Japanese  civilization,  and  to  the  pity  and 
dismay  of  such  Westerners  as  feel  the  glory 
of  the  abandoned  art  and  the  futility  and 
folly  of  the  movement  that  aims  to  establish 
in  its  place  a  false  theory,  an  alien  ideal. 

Yet  there  are  wise  and  philosophical  men 
in  Japan  who  fight  strenuously  against  the 
foolish  fashion  of  Westernism,  and  are  made 
to  suffer  for  it.  Then  there  are  architects 
who  steadily  refuse  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  foreign  architecture  in  any  of  its  forms. 
Such  an  one  is  my  old  friend,  Kashiwagi  San, 
whose  house  is  a  faultless  model  of  native 
architecture,  and  who  now  and  then  builds 
some  delicate  and  exquisite  house  for  such 
of  the  nobility  as  are  still  unreconciled  to  the 
new  era  in  Japan.  Thanks  to  these  men  and 
[116] 


Domestic  Interiors 

their  colleagues,  and  thanks  also  to  the  strong 
conservatism  of  the  middle  classes,  Japanese 
domestic  architecture  is  still  a  vital  art,  strong 
with  a  life  that  may  last  even  through  the 
present  inauspicious  days,  and  form  a  basis 
for  more  logical  work,  when  the  times  have 
changed  and  national  self-confidence  is  re- 
stored again. 

The  wonderful  power  and  splendour  of 
Japanese  decorative  art  are  a  byword.  The 
masterly  sculpture  of  the  seventh  and  eighth 
centuries  is  as  yet  rated  only  at  a  part  of  its 
value;  native  architecture  is  almost  wholly 
unconsidered,  or  at  least  is  dismissed  as 
flimsy,  erratic,  undignified.  I  am  sure  this 
latter  condemnation  is  wrong  and  that  the 
national  architecture  is  just  as  logical,  just  as 
firmly  based  on  the  enduring  laws  of  art,  as 
any  other  style  in  the  world.  It  is  the  per- 
fect style  in  wood,  as  Gothic  may  be  called  the 
perfect  style  in  stone.  Considered  as  an  ex- 
pression of  profound  and  subtle  artistic  feeling 
[117] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

through  the  mediumship  of  wood,  it  demands 
and  must  receive  recognition  and  admiration. 
The  great  temples  are  the  apotheosis  of  this 
system  of  building,  but  the  private  houses  are 
its  base,  and  in  them  one  feels  equally  the 
logic  of  the  construction,  the  clear  knowledge 
of  the  essential  beauty  of  the  material. 

To  the  Japanese,  wood,  like  anything  that 
possesses  beauty,  is  almost  sacred,  and  he 
handles  it  with  a  fineness  of  feeling  that  at 
best  we  only  reveal  when  we  are  dealing  with 
precious  marbles.  From  all  wood  that  may 
be  seen  close  at  hand,  except  such  as  is  used 
as  a  basis  for  the  rare  and  precious  lacquer, 
paint,  stain,  varnish,  anything  that  may  ob- 
scure the  beauty  of  texture  and  grain,  is 
rigidly  kept  away.  The  original  cost  of  the 
material  is  a  matter  of  no  consequence;  if  it 
has  a  subtle  tone  of  colour,  a  delicate  swirl 
in  the  veining,  a  peculiarly  soft  and  velvety 
texture,  it  is  carefully  treasured  and  used  in 
the  place  of  honour. 

[118] 


Domestic  Interiors 

The  same  respectful  regard  is  shown 
towards  plaster.  With  us  of  the  West  plaster 
is  simply  a  cheap  means  of  obtaining  a  flat 
surface  that  afterwards  may  be  covered  up  in 
many  different  ways;  with  the  Japanese 
plaster  is  an  end  in  itself,  and  well  it  may  be! 
We  ourselves  know  nothing  of  the  possibili- 
ties of  this  material.  In  Japan  it  has  the 
solidity  of  stone,  the  colour  of  smoke  and  mist 
and  ethereal  vapours,  and  the  texture  of 
velvet. 

Wood  and  plaster:  these  are  two  of  the 
four  components  of  a  Japanese  interior.  The 
third  is  woven  straw  of  a  pale,  neutral  green. 
This  is  for  the  inevitable  mats  that  carpet  all 
the  floors.  The  fourth  is  rice  paper;  creamy 
white,  thin,  and  tough,  stretched  over  the 
light  latticework  that  forms  the  windows 
and  the  outer  range  of  sliding  screens  (shoji), 
or  covering  the  thicker  screens  (  fusuma)  that 
form  the  dividing  partitions  of  the  rooms. 
(Plate  XXX.)  Now  and  then  these  fusuma 
[119] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

are  covered  with  dull  gold  and  faintly  traced 
with  dim  landscapes  or  decorative  drawings 
of  birds  and  flowers,  or  else  they  are  wrought 
with  great  black  ideographs;  sometimes  the 
paper  is  faintly  tinted,  or  varied  by  an  ad- 
mixture of  delicate  seaweed,  but  as  a  general 
thing,  and  except  in  a  noble's  "yashiki"  or 
in  some  house  of  entertainment,  the  four 
materials  remain :  natural  wood,  tinted  plaster, 
pleated  straw,  and  rice  paper. 

Not  an  ambitious  collection  of  materials, 
and  yet  for  refinement,  reserve,  subtle  colour, 
and  perfection  of  artistic  composition  and 
ultimate  effect,  I  know  of  few  things  to  com- 
pare with  the  interior  of  a  Japanese  house. 

For  the  extreme  reserve  that  marks  the 
architectural  forms  is  echoed  in  the  furnish- 
ings; they  are  few  and  of  the  utmost  sim- 
plicity, nothing  appearing  except  such  articles 
as  are  absolutely  necessary,  and,  inconsistent 
as  it  may  appear  with  the  common  ideas  of 
Japanese  society,  there  is  a  certain  austerity, 
[120] 


Domestic  Interiors 

asceticism  even,  about  the  native  character 
that  reduces  this  list  of  necessities  much  be- 
low what  would  be  acceptable  to  Western 
ideas.  A  number  of  thin,  flat,  silk  cushions 
to  kneel  on,  one  or  two  tansu,  or  chests  of 
drawers,  andon,  or  lamps  with  rice  paper 
screens,  small  lacquered  tables  a  foot  square 
and  half  as  high  for  serving  food,  hibachi  or 
braziers,  several  folding  screens,  a  standing 
mirror  of  burnished  steel,  and  dishes  of  lacquer 
and  porcelain  form  the  entire  list,  with  the 
exception  of  cooking  utensils  and  the  beds  that 
are  rolled  up  and  put  away  in  closets  during 
the  day.  Under  ordinary  circumstances,  a 
living-room,  even  of  the  best  class,  contains 
nothing  in  the  way  of  furniture  except  what 
appears  in  the  tokonoma  and  chigai-dana. 
Cushions  are  produced  when  the  room  is  in 
use  by  day,  beds  at  night,  small  tables  when 
food  is  served,  and  a  brazier  if  the  weather 
is  cold,  —  this  last  apparently  as  a  formality 
for  it  has  no  appreciable  effect  on  the  tern- 
[121] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

perature.  One  would  say  that  the  result 
would  be  barren  and  cheerless,  but  this  is  not 
the  case,  every  detail  of  form  and  colour  being 
so  exquisitely  studied  that  the  empty  room 
is  sufficient  in  itself.  There  is  something 
about  the  great  spacious  apartments,  airy 
and  full  of  mellow  light,  that  is  curiously 
satisfying,  and  one  feels  the  absence  of  furni- 
ture only  with  a  sense  of  relief.  Relieved  of 
the  rivalry  of  crowded  furnishings,  men  and 
women  take  on  a  quite  singular  quality  of 
dignity  and  importance.  It  is  impossible 
after  a  time  not  to  feel  that  the  Japanese 
have  adopted  an  idea  of  the  function  of  a 
room  and  the  method  of  best  expressing  this, 
far  in  advance  of  that  which  we  have  made  our 
own. 

From  the  moment  one  steps  down  from 
one's  kuruma  and,  slipping  off  one's  shoes, 
passes  into  soft  light  and  delicate  colour, 
amongst  the  simple  forms  and  wide  spaces  of 
a  Japanese  house  there  is  nothing  to  break 
[122] 


Domestic  Interiors 

the  spell  of  perfect  simplicity  and  perfect 
artistic  feeling;  the  chaos  of  Western  houses 
becomes  an  ugly  dream. 

Except  in  the  state  residence  or  yashiki  of 
daimyo  (Plate  XXXI)  the  entrance  to  a  pri- 
vate house  was  usually  without  distinguish- 
ing marks,  and  one  alighted  at  any  portion 
of  the  narrow  veranda  or  yen-gawa  that 
surrounds  the  house,  but  in  more  pretentious 
structures  the  vestibule  was  a  dominant 
feature  and  nowadays  this  emphasis  has 
been  borrowed  from  yashiki  and  temple  and 
is  found  in  all  houses  of  the  better  sort.  This 
vestibule  is  a  square  porch,  open  in  front, 
with  a  wide,  curved  roof.  At  the  end  is  a 
narrow  wooden  platform  from  which  a  big 
door  gives  access  to  the  grand  corridor  or 
iri-kawa  that  surrounds  and  isolates  the  state 
apartments.  Opposite  the  door  is  a  low, 
square,  painted  screen  in  a  lacquer  frame, 
usually  most  gorgeously  decorated;  some- 
times a  dwarf  tree  stretches  its  gnarled 
[123] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

branches  athwart  the  burnished  gold,  or  a 
great  branch  of  blossoms  in  a  precious  vase 
gives  a  note  of  splendid  colour.  The  iri-kawa 
(Plate  XXXII)  is  a  corridor  from  six  to 
twelve  feet  wide  that  serves  at  once  as  a 
passageway  and  as  a  kind  of  anteroom  to 
the  chief  apartment,  called  jo-dan  and  ge-dan. 
When  it  leaves  these  rooms  of  honour  its  name 
changes  and  it  becomes  the  ro-ka  or  passage- 
way, giving  access  to  the  parlours  or  zashiki 
(Plate  XXXIII),  the  anterooms  or  tamari, 
the  tea-rooms  or  cha-dokoro.  In  addition 
to  these  rooms  are  the  kitchens,  baths,  dress- 
ing-rooms, an«d  servants'  waiting-rooms,  but 
no  bedrooms  as  such,  for  any  apartment 
serves  this  latter  purpose  and  also  that  of  a 
dining-room,  the  beds  being  made  up  on  the 
thick  floor-mats,  the  meals  brought  by  the 
myriad  servants  to  any  part  of  the  house  and 
served  on  many  little  tables  of  red  and  black 
lacquer. 

Nor   does   the   arrangement   or   decoration 
[124] 


Domestic  Interiors 

of  the  rooms  differ  materially.  Posts  and 
beams  of  natural  satiny  wood,  wonderful 
plaster  of  many  subtle  colours,  ceilings  of  nar- 
row timbers  and  delicately  grained  boards, 
floors  covered  with  straw  mats  two  inches 
thick  and  always  three  by  six  feet  in  size, 
this  is  the  inevitable  setting.  In  all  the  chief 
rooms  one  end  is  formed  of  two  alcoves 
called  tokonoma  and  chigai-dana  (Plate 
XXXIV),  the  former  to  hold  the  picture  or 
kakimono  of  the  day,  the  other  to  display 
the  selection  of  artistic  treasures  made  from 
the  stores  ordinarily  concealed  in  the  fire- 
proof kura  or  "  godown."  These  two  alcoves 
form  the  places  of  honour,  and  in  feudal 
times  the  daimyo  sat  in  front  of  them  on 
the  floor  of  the  jo-dan,  raised  a  step  above 
the  lower  half  of  the  room,  or  ge-dan  where 
guests  and  retainers  assembled  to  pay  their 
respects.  Now  the  guest  is  placed  nearest 
the  tokonoma  while  the  host  chooses  a  lower 
station. 

[125] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

In  the  chigai-dana  and  tokonoma  are  con- 
centrated all  the  richness  and  decoration  in 
the  apartment.  In  the  ancient  palaces  and 
yashiki  they  were  of  incredible  magnificence, 
gold  and  lacquer,  carving  and  precious 
woods  forming  a  combination  of  almost  un- 
exampled richness  (Plate  XXXV) ;  but  in  the 
modern  house,  while  they  remain  very  beau- 
tiful they  have  become  comparatively  simple 
and  modest.  In  every  case,  however,  they 
show  to  perfection  the  wonderful  artistic  feel- 
ing of  the  race,  for  in  line  and  colour  and 
form  the  combination  of  picture,  flowers,  and 
bric-a-brac  is  beyond  criticism.  One  picture 
only  is  exposed  in  each  room  and  this  is 
changed  daily.  Is  the  master  going  a-fish- 
ing?  Then  some  appropriate  kakimono  is 
hung  in  its  place.  Is  it  cherry  time  or  the 
time  of  chrysanthemums  or  peonies  or  any 
other  of  the  wonderful  flowers  of  Japan? 
Then  this  feeling  is  echoed  in  the  kaki- 
mono and  in  the  flowers  that  stand  in  front. 
[126] 


PL| 


Domestic  Interiors 

The  whole  basis  of  artistic  combination  may 
be  gained  in  a  study  of  Japanese  tokonoma, 
for  in  them  one  finds  preserved  all  the 
matchless  refinement  of  feeling,  all  the  result 
of  centuries  of  artistic  life  that  raised  the  art 
of  Japan  to  the  dizzy  height  from  which 
Europe  and  America  are  now  engaged  in 
casting  it  ignominiously  down. 

In  the  ultimate  analysis  a  Japanese  house 
is  seen  to  be  simply  a  wide  floor  raised  on 
posts  two  or  three  feet  above  the  ground  and 
matted  with  woven  straw;  covered  by  a  low, 
tiled  roof  supported  on  many  square  posts 
and  then  divided  into  apartments  by  sliding 
screens  of  varying  sizes.  There  are  no  win- 
dows as  we  know  them  and  no  doors. 

Around  the  outside  of  the  narrow  veranda 
run  the  amado  or  storm  screens  of  solid  wood, 
closed  tightly  at  night  but  pushed  back  into 
pockets  during  the  day.  On  the  inner  side 
of  this  yen-gawa  is  the  sliding  wall  of  trans- 
lucent rice  paper  screens,  through  which  the 
[127] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

light  comes  soft  and  mellow  to  the  living 
rooms.  Between  the  inner  posts  run  the 
solid  fusuma  that  may  be  removed  alto- 
gether, throwing  the  whole  space  into  one 
enormous  apartment,  should  this  be  desired. 
In  modern  times,  permanent  walls  of  plaster 
have  taken  the  place  of  some  of  the  sliding 
screens,  but  the  greater  part  of  the  dividing 
partitions  still  remain  temporary  and  re- 
movable. Seldom  more  than  six  and  a  half 
feet  high,  these  fusuma  have  a  space  between 
their  tops  and  the  ceiling  and  this  is  filled 
with  openwork  panels  or  ramma,  often  mar- 
velously  elaborate  in  design,  their  delicate 
patterns  coming  black  against  the  pearly 
light  that  glows  through  the  white  shoji. 
(Plate  XXXVI.) 

Faultlessly  cool,  airy,  and  spacious  in 
summer,  a  Japanese  house  leaves  much  to  be 
desired  in  the  cold  winter  of  the  north,  for 
the  wind  filters  through  every  crack  and 
crevice  and  the  only  heat  comes  from  char- 
[128] 


Domestic  Interiors 

coal  braziers,  beautiful  in  design  but  wo- 
fully  inadequate  as  heating  agencies.  But 
the  Japanese  are  a  strangely  hardy  race,  and 
clothed  in  thin  silks  sit  comfortably  in  a 
temperature  that  would  chill  an  European 
to  the  marrow.  Only  in  a  bath  is  it  possible 
for  a  foreigner  to  get  warm,  and  here  he  is 
parboiled,  for  the  temperature  of  the  water 
ranges  from  110°  to  125°.  A  bath  in  a  pri- 
vate house  or  hotel  in  Japan  is,  at  first,  some- 
thing of  an  experience,  for  the  bathroom  is 
rather  more  public  than  any  other  apartment; 
in  native  inns  indeed  it  is  often  open  in  front, 
giving,  perhaps,  on  a  court  or  garden,  and  it 
is  possible  for  a  guest  to  boil  placidly  in  his 
tank  and  converse  amicably  with  the  other 
guests  and  the  housemaids  as  they  pass  to 
and  fro.  But  what  it  lacks  in  privacy  the 
bath  makes  up  in  beauty,  for  it  is  often  fan- 
tastic in  design  and  elaborate  in  its  decora- 
tion, with  its  walls  of  pierced  woodwork,  its 
lofty  roof,  and  its  floor  of  brilliant  tiles. 
[129] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

In  plan  a  private  house  is  irregular  and 
rambling  to  the  last  degree.  The  corridors 
reach  off  into  long  perspective,  the  rooms 
open  out  one  after  another,  full  of  varying 
light  and  subtle  colour;  here  and  there  little 
gardens  appear  in  the  most  unexpected  places, 
giving  wonderful  glimpses  of  pale  bamboo 
groves  and  dwarfed  trees  and  brilliant  flowers, 
with  silver  sand  underneath  and  tiny  water 
courses  paved  with  round  pebbles.  Great 
stone  lanterns  and  bronze  storks  and  dark 
pools  of  water  are  arranged  with  the  most 
curious  skill,  and  from  every  room  one  can 
look  always  either  out  to  the  great  surround- 
ing garden  with  its  thick  foliage  and  wander- 
ing brooks  and  curved  bridges,  or  into  the 
little  enclosed  courts,  dim  and  damp  and  full 
of  misty  shadows. 

The  world  offers  few  experiences  more 
novel  and  charming  than  a  visit  to  a  Japa- 
nese house  of  the  better  class.  The  nation 
itself  is  hospitality  incarnate,  and  to  see  this 
[130] 


x 
X 
X 


Domestic  Interiors 

at  its  perfection  one  has  only  to  possess  him- 
self of  a  letter  of  introduction  to  some  con- 
servative old  noble.  From  the  moment  his 
kuruma  stops  under  the  great  porch  he  is 
made  to  feel  that  the  house  is  his,  the  host 
but  an  humble  agent  who  has  long  waited 
the  return  of  the  rightful  owner. 

The  'ricksha  rolls  swiftly  into  the  outer 
garden  and  the  brown-legged  kurumaya  gives 
a  long,  wailing  cry  of  warning.  Hardly  has 
the  'ricksha  stopped  when  the  vestibule  doors 
are  slid  back  and  between  them  appears  an 
old  porter  in  blue-gray  silk,  kneeling  and 
bowing  solemnly  until  his  head  almost  touches 
the  floor.  Shoes  are  slipped  off  in  the  porch, 
and  following  the  noiseless  porter  one  is 
ushered  into  an  anteroom  to  kneel  on  silk 
cushions  while  his  card  is  taken  to  the  master. 
Presently  the  fusuma  slide  softly  and  a  little 
maid  enters,  bringing  fanciful  sweetmeats  in 
dishes  of  red  and  gold  lacquer;  kneeling  to 
open  the  fusuma  and  again  to  close  them,  for 
[131] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

it  is  an  unpardonable  breach  of  etiquette  for 
a  servant  to  slide  the  screens  standing;  she 
glides  away  only  to  return  with  tea  and  a 
tobacco  box  with  its  cone  of  glowing  charcoal 
in  fine  white  ashes.  The  silence  is  profound, 
and  there  is  no  sound  except,  perhaps,  the 
ripple  of  running  water  in  the  garden  without, 
or  the  splash  of  a  leaping  carp  in  the  pool, 
dark  under  overhanging  azaleas,  or  purple 
wistaria  with  its  long  racemes  of  flowers  touch- 
ing the  surface  of  the  water. 

Finally  the  fusuma  open  and  danna  san  is 
seen  kneeling  and  prostrating  himself  in  cour- 
teous greeting.  He  enters  and,  placing  him- 
self on  the  cushion  opposite,  bows  again 
with  grave  dignity  and  inconceivable  courtli- 
ness. The  long  formalities  of  a  preliminary 
conversation  are  proceeded  with  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  tea  and  pipes,  and  presently, 
summoned  by  a  clapping  of  hands,  the  maids 
slide  the  fusuma  and  we  pass  through  the 
wide  low  corridors  to  the  state  apartments. 
[132] 


Domestic  Interiors 

(Plate  XXXVII.)  Fusuma  and  shoji  are 
wide  open  and  all  along  one  side  of  the  room 
lies  some  magical  garden,  even  though  the 
house  may  be  in  the  midst  of  Tokyo  or  Kyoto. 
One  is  seldom  entertained  in  a  private 
house,  the  clubs  and  restaurants  serve  this 
purpose,  for  there  one  can  have  amazing  din- 
ners with  music  and  geisha,  but  now  and  then 
specially  favoured  mortals  dine  with  my  lord 
in  his  own  residence.  Let  us  suppose  this 
is  to  occur  now.  The  master  claps  his  hands, 
the  screens  open,  and  several  little  maids 
appear,  bringing  little  tables,  covered  with 
bowls  of  porcelain  and  lacquer.  Facing  each 
other,  host  and  guest  kneel  on  their  cushions 
and  the  tables  are  arranged  between  them, 
the  maids  placing  themselves  on  one  side  to 
be  of  instant  service  at  any  moment,  and  to 
fill  little  cups  with  hot,  aromatic  sake.  Soups 
of  many  kinds,  thin  flakes  of  opalescent  raw 
fish,  eels,  lobster,  and  fish  of  every  kind  and 
cooked  in  every  way,  follow  each  other  in 
[133] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

bewildering  succession,  and  finally  rice  ap- 
pears, served  from  a  great  lacquer  box.  Out- 
side the  garden  is  full  of  shifting  light  and 
subtle  colour,  here  where  we  are  sitting  the 
room  is  spacious  and  airy  and  at  every  point 
the  eye  is  refreshed  by  the  most  delicate  de- 
tail, the  most  refined  tone,  the  most  perfect 
repose  and  reserve.  Presently,  at  a  gesture 
from  the  master,  every  vestige  of  the  feast 
vanishes  and  we  are  left  to  smoke  and  talk, 
more  intimately  now  and  without  the  many 
formalities  that  are  unavoidable  at  first. 

When  the  time  for  departure  arrives,  the 
master  himself  comes  to  the  door  and  ser- 
vants assemble  from  every  quarter  to  kneel 
on  either  side  of  the  platform  while  host  and 
guest  face  each  other  and  bow  again  and 
again,  murmuring  the  formal  phrases  of 
leave-taking,  each  of  which  is  centuries  old 
and  breathes  all  the  courtliness  and  dignity 
of  a  dead  epoch,  when  feudalism  was  a  vital 
and  glorious  institution.  Shoes  are  resumed, 
[134] 


Domestic  Interiors 

the  guest  mounts  into  his  kuruma,  and  as  the 
circle  of  servants  prostrate  themselves,  rolls 
away,  bearing  some  gift  commensurate  with 
the  rank  of  the  host,  and  the  more  enduring 
memento  of  an  unforgetable  impression  of 
refined  living,  courtesy,  the  product  of  im- 
memorial centuries,  and  hospitality  that  is 
genuine  in  impulse,  profoundly  grateful  to 
the  Western  recipient. 

For  the  courtesy  and  simplicity  of  Japa- 
nese home  life,  the  domestic  architecture 
forms  a  faultless  setting.  It  is  absolutely 
frank  and  straightforward  in  construction, 
perfectly  simple  in  its  forms,  and  reserved 
and  refined  in  its  decorations;  all  the  orna- 
ment is  rigidly  constructional,  while  the  fur- 
nishings are  of  the  simplest  quality  and  only 
such  as  the  nature  of  the  life  demands. 
There  is  no  ornament  for  the  sake  of  orna- 
ment, no  woodwork  or  carving  not  demanded 
by  the  exigencies  of  construction,  no  striving 
for  picturesque  effect  through  fantastic  irregu- 
[135] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

larity,  no  overloading  of  unnecessary  decora- 
tion, no  confusion  of  furnishings,  no  litter  of 
trivial  and  embarrassing  accessories.  The 
spirit  of  ornamented  construction  and  no 
other  ornament  whatever  that  characterized 
Greek  architecture  finds  its  echo  in  Asia. 
As  a  result  the  effect  is  more  reserved,  refined, 
gentlemanly,  almost  ascetic,  than  is  to  be 
found  elsewhere.  No  greater  contrast  to  our 
own  fashion  could  be  imagined.  With  us 
the  prime  object  appears  to  be  the  complete 
concealment  of  all  construction  of  whatever 
nature  by  an  overlay  of  independent  orna- 
ment. With  wainscot  and  marble  and  tiles, 
plaster,  textiles,  and  paper  hangings,  we  create 
a  perfectly  fictitious  shell  that  masks  all  con- 
struction and  exists  quite  independently  of  it. 
We  pile  up  our  immutable  little  cells  in 
superimposed  courses,  cut  narrow  openings 
in  the  walls  and  fill  them  with  flapping  doors 
that  are  always  in  the  way.  We  perforate 
the  outer  walls  with  awkward  holes  and  fill 
[136] 


Domestic  Interiors 

them  with  plate-glass  in  order  that  we  may 
gaze  on  a  narrow  back  garden  or  a  narrower 
street  where  nothing  that  is  worth  seeing  ever 
occurs.  With  wainscot  and  drapery  and 
paper  hangings  we  strive  for  an  effect  of  pro- 
tection and  then  nullify  it  by  our  plate-glass 
windows  that  afford  only  a  garish  light,  and, 
in  most  cases,  a  view  of  things  not  worth 
looking  at. 

As  a  result  the  rooms  are  chilly  and  with- 
out sense  of  protection  in  winter,  and  stuffy 
and  oppressive  in  summer.  The  Japanese 
house  is  a  revelation  of  the  possibilities  of 
exactly  the  opposite  course.  It  is  a  perma- 
nent lesson  in  the  value  of  simplicity,  of 
modesty,  of  frankness,  of  naturalness  in  art. 

In  the  inns  and  public  houses  of  amusement 
we  find  the  same  qualities  that  mark  the  pri- 
vate house  carried  a  little  further.  The 
form,  the  arrangement,  the  materials  are  the 
same,  but  with  the  greater  size  come  also 
larger  opportunities  for  artistic  effects.  The 
[137] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

inns  are  almost  always  two  stories  high,  never 
more,  and  the  buildings  enclose  wonderful 
little  courts  surrounded  by  narrow  galleries 
(Plate  XXXVIII),  or  border  on  stone  ter- 
races and  wandering  gardens.  There  is  one 
hotel  at  Uji  that  is  a  vision  of  delight,  as  it 
climbs  along  the  high  bank  of  a  river,  with 
its  terraces  crowded  with  blossoming,  sweet- 
scented  shrubs  that  lean  over  the  mossy  stone 
paths  and  crumbling  steps.  There  is  an- 
other wonderful  inn  at  Hikone  that  was  once 
the  summer  pavilion  of  the  great  li-Kamon- 
no-Kami,  and  its  garden  is  famous  through- 
out Japan.  It  is  only  one  story  high  and 
rambles  for  an  apparently  illimitable  distance 
up  and  down  and  away  at  surprising  angles, 
its  last  outworks  perched  on  the  great  wall 
over  Lake  Biwa,  its  scores  of  apartments 
opening  on  marvelous  views  that  almost 
make  one  forget  the  beauty  of  the  architec- 
tural surroundings.  The  Shukin-ro  at  Nagoya 
(Plate  XXXIX)  has  no  views,  except  of  its 
[138] 


Domestic  Interiors 

own  inimitable  little  courts,  but  it  is  the  per- 
fect type  of  a  courtly  and  hospitable  inn, 
every  room  being  a  work  of  delicate  art.  All 
the  true  Japanese  hotels  are  practically  the 
same  as  a  private  house,  so  far  as  planning 
and  construction  are  concerned,  and  in  them 
a  guest  has  the  same  privileges  as  in  a  dwell- 
ing, being  at  liberty  to  wander  anywhere 
and  even  change  his  apartments  every  day 
if  he  like.  In  accordance  with  universal 
practice  he  eats,  lives,  and  sleeps  in  the 
same  rooms;  if  he  prefers,  and  the  inn  is  not 
crowded,  he  may  choose  any  vacant  room  he 
pleases  for  his  meals,  or  for  his  sleeping 
apartment. 

The  so-called  "tea-houses"  and  restau- 
rants are  of  course  innumerable,  for  the 
Japanese,  reserved,  silent,  even  dogged  when 
occasion  demands,  are  by  nature  a  gay  and 
gregarious  race,  demanding  relaxation  and 
amusement  and  taking  it  frankly  and  simply 
at  frequent  intervals.  In  general  it  is  of  the 
[139] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

most  innocent  sort,  flagrant  immorality  being 
no  more  prevalent  than  in  any  other  type  of 
modern  civilization.  Domestic  etiquette  holds 
the  home  a  personal,  even  sacred  possession, 
and  except  amongst  the  ultra-emancipated 
classes,  a  guest  is  seldom  received  there  for 
any  entertainment.  For  the  high  aristocracy, 
the  many  and  exclusive  clubs  furnish  the 
means  of  showing  courtesy  to  the  friend  or 
the  stranger,  but  the  middle  classes  resort  to 
hotels  and  restaurants,  while  the  "tea-house" 
receives  every  one,  high  and  low.  A  typical 
Japanese  dinner  in  some  exquisite  restaurant 
on  the  edge  of  the  river  at  Kyoto  or  over- 
looking the  waters  of  Shinobazu  in  Tokyo, 
with  delicate  food,  the  music  of  samisen  or 
koto,  unearthly  but  bewitching  songs  and  the 
magical  dancing  of  silken  geisha,  is  as  be- 
wildering an  experience  as  usually  falls  to 
the  lot  of  man.  No  less  redolent  of  strange 
aloofness  is  rest  and  refreshment  in  some 
country  or  suburban  "tea-house"  draped 
[140] 


X 


Domestic  Interiors 

with  violet  wistaria,  showered  by  cherry 
petals,  or  half  hidden  in  fantastic  trees  and 
smothering,  blossoming  shrubs  (Plate  XL). 
Here  the  architecture  is,  of  course,  of  the 
simplest,  as  it  is  in  the  thatched  farmhouses 
that  crown  every  province  of  the  Empire 
(Plate  XLI),  but  it  is  direct,  spontaneous, 
ethnic,  better  in  fact  from  the  standpoint  of 
art  than  some  of  the  splendid  new  examples 
of  an  adapted  "palace  style"  of  building, 
examples  of  which  I  have  shown  in  Plates 
XXXIII,  XXXIV,  XXXV,  XXXVII. 

In  another  class  of  public  houses  the  varia- 
tion from  the  domestic  type  is  more  marked, 
for  they  tend  to  pile  themselves  up  to  the 
loftiest  heights,  even  five  and  six  stories  being 
not  uncommon.  In  these  there  is  usually 
one  great  inner  garden  with  hanging  galleries 
and  dizzy  bridges  curving  themselves  across 
the  void  from  one  side  to  another.  At  night 
when  the  whole  fabric  glows  with  pale  light 
through  latticed  rice  paper,  and  blood-red 
[141] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

lanterns  droop  from  the  gallery  roofs,  while 
the  air  is  sweet  with  the  scent  of  flowers  and 
full  of  the  sound  of  plashing  fountains  and 
the  tinkling  of  samisen,  the  effect  is  almost 
unimaginably  dreamy  and  poetic. 

But  whatever  the  nature  of  the  structure 
the  same  qualities  always  express  themselves. 
There  is  always  a  perfect  frankness  almost 
naivete  of  plan;  there  is  airiness  and  space 
and  a  constant  variety  of  view,  but  quite  with- 
out affectation  or  striving  after  effect;  there 
is  a  faultless  blending  of  subtle  colours,  a 
constant  composition  of  delicate  line  and 
graceful  form.  Above  all,  there  is  a  soul- 
reviving  simplicity  that  is  infinite  in  its  dig- 
nity and  reserve. 


[142] 


X 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  MINOR  ARTS 


AT  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century 
we  stood  as  on  a  height  of  land  whence 
we  could  look  backward  along  the  path  of 
human  development:  a  larger  view,  one  more 
comprehensive  and  complete,  was  possible 
than  ever  before,  and  we  were  permitted  to 
see  many  things,  establish  many  relation- 
ships not  recognized  in  the  past.  Amongst 
them  was  the  position  of  art  in  its  relation  to 
what  we  are  pleased  to  call  civilization.  The 
wider  view  we  were  then  enabled  to  take 
gave,  I  think,  something  of  a  shock  to  our 
self-satisfaction,  for  we  saw  very  clearly  that 
the  seventeenth,  eighteenth,  and  nineteenth 
centuries  had  witnessed  a  steady  and  un- 
[143] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

broken  decline  in  all  the  arts  but  one,  the 
art  of  music,  and  also  that  this  decline,  vary- 
ing slightly  in  the  periods  of  its  duration,  had 
extended  over  the  entire  world.  Retrogres- 
sion there  had  been  many  times  in  the  past, 
one  or  two  or  all  the  arts  had  suffered  now 
and  then  and  here  and  there,  but  the  result- 
ing inferiority  had  been  relative  always  be- 
fore; with  us  it  was  absolute.  By  this  I  mean 
that  by  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
we  had  sunk  to  a  point  lower  than  ever  in 
history,  excepting  only  in  music  and  in  a 
measure  in  literature,  but  even  here  the  loss 
was  actual  and  measurable,  for  the  great 
results  achieved  had  been  at  the  hands  of 
isolated  individuals  and  in  spite  of  the  general 
enmity  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people.  For 
the  first  time  in  the  annals  of  the  world  art  as 
an  instinctive  thing,  as  an  heritage  of  hu- 
manity, had  reached  its  term.  We  had  sold 
our  birthright,  perhaps,  though  this  is  heresy, 
for  a  mess  of  pottage. 

[144] 


The  Minor  Arts 

The  consciousness  of  this  startling  con- 
dition came  first  to  the  few,  and  even  before 
the  nineteenth  century  had  covered  half  its 
allotted  course.  These  few  began  a  feverish 
search  through  all  the  world  for  the  vivifying 
flame  that  had  flickered  and  died  in  the  West. 
They  found  it  at  the  antipodes,  in  the  then 
unravaged  East,  and  in  one  spot,  in  a  little 
group  of  hermit  islands,  in  the  most  ancient 
and  glorious  Kingdom  of  Japan,  they  found 
it  burning  with  yet  unhindered  brightness 
and  they  announced  their  treasure  trove  with 
exultation. 

That  was  less  than  fifty  years  ago,  but  now 
the  flame  has  been  extinguished  also  in  this 
its  latest  sanctuary,  and  the  lamps  hang 
empty  of  oil  and  void  of  light. 

In  the  history  of  the  gradual  extinction  of 
the  artistic  impulse  Japan  stands  as  the  last 
of  nations  to  forsake  its  heritage,  as  it  also 
stands  as  the  first  of  the  nations  that  now 
exist  to  assume  these  rights  and  privileges  of 
[145] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

civilization.  While  Europe  was  wallowing  in 
the  banalities  of  the  pagan  Renaissance,  in- 
sulting intelligence  with  the  architectural  cru- 
dities of  Palladio  and  Maderna  and  the  pic- 
torial imbecilities  of  Guido  Reni  and  Salvator 
Rosa,  Japan  was  building  the  shrines  of  Nikko 
and  painting  the  palace  temples  of  Kyoto 
with  immortal  decorations.  Later  by  two 
centuries,  while  the  West  was  producing  black 
walnut  and  haircloth,  plated  silver  ice-pitchers, 
and  chromo-lithographs,  Japan  was  quietly 
creating  lacquers,  cloisonne  and  embroideries, 
ivory  carvings,  screens  and  kakimono,  any 
single  example  of  which  would  honour  a 
contemporary  museum  of  art.  So  also  at 
the  beginning  the  architecture  and  sculpture 
of  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries  in  Japan 
was  inconceivably  in  advance  of  the  rough 
brutalities  of  the  Europe  of  that  time,  then 
just  emerging  from  barbarism,  and  so  it  was 
to  remain  for  almost  five  hundred  years.  The 
great  art  of  the  West  is  comprised  in  two  brief 
[146] 


The  Minor  Arts 

periods,  one  of  some  three  hundred  years 
ending  with  the  Christian  era,  one  of  a  similar 
space  of  time  dating  from  the  crusades  to 
the  Reformation:  the  art  of  Japan  lasts  un- 
broken from  the  middle  of  the  seventh  cen- 
tury to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth,  a  dura- 
tion of  twelve  hundred  years.  It  is  the  most 
prolonged  art-record  in  the  world,  and  though 
it  passed  through  many  vicissitudes,  it  never 
lapsed,  remaining  always  vigorous  and  true. 
At  different  times  it  expressed  itself  through 
different  modes,  sculpture,  architecture,  paint- 
ing, decoration,  and  "arts  and  crafts,"  each 
in  turn  serving  its  purpose  as  a  vehicle  of  ex- 
pression for  a  passion  for  beauty  that  never 
failed. 

Japanese  civilization  begins  with  the  year 
552  when  Korean  missionaries  brought  from 
the  mainland  the  vivifying  spirit  of  a  most 
exalted  religious  system,  though  actually  the 
conversion  of  Shotoku  Taishi,  the  Constan- 
tine  of  Japan,  some  forty  years  later,  marks 
[147] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

the  permanent  establishment  of  Buddhism, 
that  noble  union  of  religion  and  philosophy 
that  was  to  be  the  inspiration  of  a  civiliza- 
tion and  an  art  destined  to  endure  for  almost 
thirteen  hundred  years.  Art  marked  the 
birth  of  this  great  civilization  as  it  marked 
its  close,  and  the  temples  of  Horiuji  still 
stand  in  enduring  record.  The  architect  was 
a  Korean,  and  the  style  is  the  purest  Chinese; 
Chinese  also  are  the  painted  frescoes  of  the 
walls,  with  a  slight  Hindoo  cast,  and  the 
superb  sculptures,  preserving,  through  all  their 
orientalism,  hints  of  Hellenic  influence. 

China  has  always  been  to  Japan  what 
Athens  was  to  Rome;  the  first  influence 
towards  culture,  learning,  and  art  came  from 
her,  and  down  even  to  the  sixteenth  century 
there  was  a  constant  reference  to  her  on 
every  subject.  She  remained  the  perfect 
standard  in  letters,  philosophy,  religion,  sculp- 
ture, architecture,  painting,  and  music,  but 
she  was  always  a  guide,  not  a  model  for 
[148] 


The  Minor  Arts 

narrow  copying.  The  germ  of  every  phase 
of  civilization  emanated  from  her,  but  these 
germs  developed  independently,  and  as  a 
result,  while  Japan  never  quite  achieved  the 
astounding  height  of  perfect  development  that 
was  achieved  in  Hangchow  in  the  twelfth 
century,  she  yet  produced  a  more  persistent 
and  lasting  civilization  than  was  granted  to 
her  great  mother. 

All  the  art  of  Japan  is  therefore  primarily 
Chinese,  but  it  is  marked  by  a  certain  search- 
ing vitality,  a  mobility  and  an  almost  nervous 
eagerness  that  are  all  her  own.  As  I  have 
said,  the  first  architecture,  painting,  sculpture, 
and  poetry  were  Chinese  or  Chino-Korean,  but 
almost  immediately,  so  fertile  was  the  soil, 
so  powerful  the  impulse  of  Buddhism,  native 
Japanese  arose  to  carry  on  the  work  and  on 
their  own  lines.  The  unknown  architect  of 
the  Yakushiji  pagoda  was  undoubtedly  a 
Japanese.  Tori  Busshi,  though  of  Chinese 
blood  in  part,  was  born  in  Japan  early  in  the 
[149] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

seventh  century  and  was  the  first  of  the  great 
sculptors,  while  Akahito  and  Hitomaru,  who 
flourished  about  the  year  700,  were  the  first 
of  the  famous  poets.  Kose-no-Kanaoka  was 
the  first  of  the  painters;  he  was  much  later  in 
time,  living  during  the  second  half  of  the 
ninth  century.  Komachi,  a  third  great  poet, 
was  his  contemporary.  An  hundred  years 
later  came  Eshin  and  Jocho,  sculptors,  and 
Murasaki  Shikibu,  the  first  and  greatest  of 
the  novelists  of  Japan. 

All  these  were  products  of  the  great  Fuji- 
wara  period,  the  first  essentially  Japanese 
manifestation  of  governmental  possibilities. 
The  old  and  primitive  patriarchal  system 
had  been  reorganized  on  the  Chinese  bureau- 
cratic plan  in  the  year  600,  but  seventy  years 
later  the  Fujiwara  family  usurped  almost  all 
of  the  soveregin  power  and  remained  domi- 
nant for  four  hundred  years.  This  was 
artistically  a  period  of  architecture,  sculp- 
ture, and  poetry,  and  the  results  were  amazing 
[150] 


The  Minor  Arts 

in  their  perfection.  The  sculpture  of  Japan 
is  almost  unknown,  but  Horiuji,  Nara,  and 
Kyoto  bear  witness  to  the  fact  that  it  ranks 
with  the  most  perfect  in  the  world;  in  point 
of  finely  studied  line  it  has  no  superior. 
Nearly  all  the  Fujiwara  architecture  has 
perished,  but  the  exquisite  Ho-o-do  of  Byodo- 
in  still  remains  a  marvel  of  refinement  of 
proportion  and  exquisite  decoration. 

Following  the  fall  of  the  house  of  Fujiwara 
came  a  long  period  of  political  anarchy  when 
the  rival  houses  of  the  Taira  and  Minomoto 
struggled  for  the  mastery.  During  this  epoch 
architecture  contrived  to  develop,  but  the 
other  major  arts  languished,  nor  did  they 
regain  any  degree  of  brilliancy  under  the 
Ho  jo  Shogun.  Towards  the  middle  of  the 
fourteenth  century  the  Shogunate  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  house  of  Ashikaga,  and 
with  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century 
came  the  great  burst  of  artistic  genius  that, 
after  the  early  sculpture  of  the  first  years,  is 
[151] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

the  great  esthetic  glory  of  Japan.  Josetsu 
was  the  first  of  the  great  school  of  painters, 
Chodensu  its  most  famous  representative,  and 
these  immortals  were  quickly  followed  by 
Sesshu,  one  of  the  greatest  landscape  painters 
of  all  time,  Shubun  and  Kano  Motonobu, 
the  first  of  a  famous  line  and  a  decorative 
artist  almost  without  a  rival.  Unkei  was 
meanwhile  restoring  the  glories  of  the  Chinese 
and  Fujiwara  sculpture.  In  the  second  gen- 
eration came  Iwasa  Matahei,  Kano  Eitoku, 
and  Kano  Sanraku.  Then  the  Napoleonic 
Hideyoshi  strode  on  the  stage,  overturning 
the  foundations  of  all  established  systems, 
and  when  he  passed  like  a  dying  meteor  the 
Tokugawa  family  assumed  the  Shogunate. 

Now  came  a  change,  though  painting  still 
remained  the  chosen  mode  of  artistic  ex- 
pression. For  a  time  Korin  and  the  later 
painters  of  the  Kano  family  preserved  the 
classical  traditions  of  the  Ashikaga  school, 
but  in  1750  Okyo  and  his  great  pupil  Sosen 
[152] 


The  Minor  Arts 

founded  the  Shijo  school  of  avowed  realists 
and  fixed  the  popular  style  that  was  to  con- 
tinue to  the  end. 

In  the  meantime  how  had  fared  the  "arts 
and  crafts,"  the  art,  that  is,  of  all  the  people, 
the  art  that  was  the  sign  of  joy  in  life  and  in- 
dustrial vitality,  and  the  proof  of  the  depth  to 
which  the  current  civilization  had  permeated  ? 

Well,  we  know  that  from  the  very  first 
whatever  had  been  made  by  any  workman 
had  been  beautiful.  Of  course  much,  nearly 
all,  indeed,  that  dates  from  the  earliest  period, 
has  perished.  We  know  that  the  arts  of  the 
potter,  the  weaver,  and  the  metal  worker  had 
come  from  China  with  the  sixth-century 
missionaries,  and  for  the  following  eight  cen- 
turies had  followed  the  progress  of  the  major 
arts  closely  and  intimately.  But  when  feu- 
dalism became  an  established  system  at  the 
beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century,  then 
came  the  opportunity  of  the  minor  arts,  and 
under  the  Ashikaga  these  developed  to  such 
[153] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

a  degree  that  they  themselves  actually  be- 
came major  arts ;  lacquer,  porcelain,  cloisonne, 
wood  carving,  screen  painting,  embroidery, 
goldsmithery,  metal  working,  ivory  carving, 
each  and  all  became  exalted  to  a  marvelous 
height,  and  remained  there  until  the  fall  of 
the  old  regime. 

The  art  of  Japan  falls  easily  into  four  great 
periods :  first,  the  Chinese  and  Fujiwara  epoch 
lasting  from  600  to  1100,  when  the  chosen 
arts  in  their  order  of  precedence  were  sculp- 
ture, poetry,  and  architecture;  second,  the 
Kamakura  period,  when  architecture  alone 
maintained  and  even  increased  its  glory:  this 
kind  of  interregnum  lasted  three  hundred 
years,  from  1100  until  1400;  third,  the  Ashi- 
kaga  epoch,  the  golden  age  of  art  when  paint- 
ing became  unrivaled  in  its  perfection  while 
sculpture  and  the  industrial  arts  followed 
close  behind;  fourth,  the  Tokugawa  regime, 
when  architectural  decoration,  together  with 
the  industrial  arts,  leaped  to  the  front  in  a 
[154] 


The  Minor  Arts 

blaze  of  unexampled  glory,  architecture  show- 
ing signs  of  decadence,  and  painting  suffer- 
ing from  the  realism  that  the  followers  of  the 
Shijo  school  exaggerated  into  a  prominence 
that  would  have  shocked  its  founders.  Then 
Commodore  Perry  opened  the  ports,  and  like 
a  house  of  cards  the  marvelous  dream- 
fabric  crumbled  into  ruin.  The  Shogunate 
was  abolished  in  1868,  feudalism  was  de- 
stroyed in  1871,  the  wearing  of  swords  was 
prohibited  in  1876,  in  1889  the  Mikado  pro- 
mulgated the  Constitution,  and  a  civilization 
that  had  endured  for  thirteen  centuries,  a 
civilization  that  had  produced  a  national 
character  of  singular  nobility  and  an  art  of 
almost  unexampled  beauty,  passed  away  for- 
ever. Japanese  art  is  now  history;  as  a  vital 
and  contemporary  power  it  has  no  existence. 
I  am  supposed  to  talk  to  you  about  the 
Arts  and  Crafts  of  Japan,  but  if  by  this  is 
meant  a  certain  few  of  the  minor  arts  of  a 
people,  the  task  is  an  impossible  one,  for  in 
[155] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

this  sense  the  arts  and  crafts  do  not  exist  in 
Japan;  there  was  never  really  any  distinc- 
tion between  the  major  and  the  minor  arts, 
a  poem,  a  devotional  picture,  a  statue,  a 
temple  is  just  as  much  a  piece  of  craftsman- 
ship as  a  netuske,  or  a  lacquer  box,  and  a 
carved  ramma  or  a  bronze  incense  koro  is  just 
as  much  a  vehicle  of  the  highest  esthetic 
and  spiritual  expression  as  a  kakimono  by 
Cho-densu  or  the  Dai  Butsu  of  Kamakura. 
It  was  all  art;  that  is,  the  achievement  of  the 
highest  visual  beauty,  the  expression  of  joy 
in  life  and  exultation  in  well-doing,  and  the 
communication  of  spiritual  and  emotional 
enthusiasm.  Art  is  simply  the  symbolical 
expression  of  otherwise  inexpressible  ideas, 
and  the  Japanese,  living  in  a  beautiful  land, 
inspired  by  an  exalted  form  of  religion,  and 
ultimately  ennobled  by  a  splendid  feudalism 
that  enhanced  every  inborn  trait  of  honour 
and  chivalry,  simply  did  this  better  than 
almost  any  other  people  in  the  world.  Art 
[156] 


The  Minor  Arts 

should  be  at  least  the  voicing  of  health,  joy, 
the  delight  of  work,  and  the  conviction  of  a 
beautiful  religious  faith.  When  conditions 
are  such  that  all  the  people  are  blessed  with 
the  possession  of  these  things,  then  the  arts 
and  crafts  will  flourish,  and  no  hard  line  will 
divide  them  from  what  are  called  the  major 
arts. 

In  Japan  every  man,  whether  he  were 
daimyo,  samurai,  or  peasant,  lived  practically 
out  of  doors  all  the  time  and  all  the  year 
round,  he  bathed  at  least  three  times  a  day, 
and,  except  at  the  luxurious  close  of  the 
Kamakura  period  when  tea-drinking  and 
incense-burning  ceremonies  tended  to  pro- 
duce sloth  and  effeminacy,  every  man  was 
active  and  vigorously  busy.  Under  feudalism 
this  vitality  of  action  became  characteristic 
of  the  entire  race,  and  as  a  result  there  were 
universal  health  and  perfect  joy  in  We.  Japan 
has  always  been  either  an  absolute  monarchy, 
a  powerful  aristocracy,  or  a  splendid  feudal- 
[157] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

ism;  therefore  the  principles  of  law  and  order 
—  except  during  the  Kamakura  anarchy  — 
have  always  been  universally  accepted,  and 
honour,  faithfulness,  and  personal  devotion 
have  been  supreme.  As  a  result  there  was 
an  unusually  high  standard  of  government 
and  industry  of  all  kinds  flourished,  so  there 
was  general  content  and  a  greater  continuity 
of  good  civil  conditions  than  can  easily  be 
found  during  any  similar  period  in  Europe. 
Finally  Buddhism  was  supreme  and  its  noble 
ethical  system,  its  profound  philosophy,  and 
its  intense  religious  quality  worked  together 
to  build  up  strong  character  and  to  incite  the 
imagination  and  the  emotions  of  the  people 
to  the  highest  pitch. 

No  other  result  than  that  which  actually 
followed  could  be  predicated  from  these  con- 
ditions: namely,  a  kind  of  life,  a  mode  of 
thought,  a  quality  of  action  that  made  artistic 
expression  inevitable.  For  art  of  any  kind 
is  not  a  commodity,  it  cannot  be  bought  and 
[158] 


The  Minor  Arts 

sold,  it  is  a  result  that  follows  inevitably  from 
certain  conditions,  and  these  conditions  held 
in  Japan  for  thirteen  centuries  as  they  held 
in  medieval  Europe  for  three  centuries.  The 
Japanese  were  clean,  brave,  honourable, 
religious,  loyal,  and  art  followed  like  the 
blossom  and  fruitage  of  a  tree. 

The  minor  arts,  like  the  major  arts,  were 
simply  the  proper  expression,  as  I  have  said, 
of  a  healthy  delight  in  doing  everything  just 
as  well  as  it  could  possibly  be  done.  Bud- 
dhism, chivalry,  and  unflinching  loyalty  to  the 
King  and  to  the  dead,  all  taught  the  lesson 
of  faithfulness  in  small  things  as  well  as  great. 
Whatever  any  workman  did,  he  did  as  well 
as  it  could  possibly  be  done.  Ugliness  was 
then,  as  it  is  now,  a  sin;  carelessness  and 
cheapness  of  workmanship  were  then,  as  they 
are  now,  a  crime.  The  fact  that  a  thing 
was  humble  in  its  function  was  no  reason 
why  it  should  not  be  perfect  in  form  and 
fashioning.  The  Japanese  knew  that  art 
[159] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

was  not  an  amenity  of  life,  a  mere  prettiness, 
pleasing,  perhaps,  but  decidedly  a  luxury; 
they  knew  that  it  was  the  mark  of  the  man, 
the  proof  of  his  character,  the  pledge  of  his 
civilization,  and  therefore  they  were  ashamed 
to  do  anything  that  was  not  beautiful.  This 
is  really  all  there  is  to  be  said  about  Japa- 
nese arts  and  crafts.  The  forms  are  new  to 
us,  the  methods  singular,  the  patterns  strange 
and  foreign,  but  these  qualities  are  super- 
ficial. Essentially  there  is  no  difference  but 
one  of  degree  between  the  arts  of  Japan  and 
those  of  medieval  Europe.  Unbroken  civili- 
zation, a  continuity  of  tradition,  and  an  ab- 
sence of  religious  heresies  resulted  in  training 
the  eye  and  the  hand  of  the  Japanese  artisan 
to  a  point  never  attained  by  his  brothers  of 
the  West;  but  the  impulse,  the  motive  was 
the  same,  and  it  is  this  impulse  that  must 
be  incited  again  if  we  are  ever  to  attain  once 
more  proficiency  in  the  arts. 

I  said  at  the  beginning  of  this  paper  that 
[160] 


The  Minor  Arts 

with  the  close  of  the  last  century  we  stood  on 
an  eminence  from  which  we  could  obtain  a 
general  view  of  the  recent  past  impossible 
to  us  before.  In  this  view  lies  a  certain 
space  so  arid,  so  desolate,  that  in  a  way  it  cuts 
us  off  from  the  ancient  tradition  that  is  ours 
by  right.  The  second  and  third  quarters  of 
the  nineteenth  century  will  stand  forever  as 
a  kind  of  Babylonish  Captivity,  an  epoch  of 
horror  that  isolates  us  from  the  past.  During 
that  time  we  sank  lower  in  industrial  art,  in 
the  art  of  the  race,  than  ever  before  in  re- 
corded history,  and  as  a  result  the  mental 
attitude  of  the  world  was  seriously  changed. 
We  have  simply  to  start  all  over  again,  and 
by  the  grace  of  God  we  will  start  properly 
with  the  industrial  arts;  but  we  cannot  start 
from  them  immediately,  we  must  achieve 
first  of  all  the  industrial,  economic,  political, 
and  spiritual  conditions  that  will  result  in- 
evitably in  some  form  of  artistic  expression. 
How  we  are  to  do  this  is  not  for  me  to  say, 
[161] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

but  it  must  be  done,  for  if  we  do  not  express 
ourselves  artistically  in  all  we  do,  then  we 
are  barbarians. 

In  a  curious  old  book  written  some  forty- 
five  years  ago  by  Sir  Rutherford  Alcock,  I 
find  this  delicious  estimate  of  Japanese  art : 

"There  is  much,  especially  in  the  province 
of  art  properly  so  called,  to  which  the  Japa- 
nese cannot  make  the  slightest  pretension. 
They  cannot  produce  by  an  effort  works  to 
be  compared  with  the  noble  specimens  of 
repousse  carving  from  the  chisel  of  a  Vechte, 
a  Morel  Ladeuil,  or  a  Monti,  which  the  great 
International  Exposition  showed :  yet  the  Japa- 
nese bronze  castings  are,  some  of  them, 
scarce  inferior  in  skilled  workmanship  and 
mixture  of  metals  to  anything  we  can  pro- 
duce of  the  same  kind.  No  Japanese  can 
produce  anything  to  be  named  in  the  same 
day  with  a  work  from  the  pencil  of  a  Landseer, 
a  Roberts,  or  a  Stanfield,  a  Lewis,  or  a  Rosa 
Bonheur." 

[162] 


The  Minor  Arts 

To  compare  the  "repousse*  artists"  Vechte 
and  Morel  Ladeuil,  whoever  they  may  have 
been,  with  Okyo  and  Hidari  Jingoro,  and 
Roberts  and  Lewis  with  Sesshu  and  Kano 
Motonobu,  would  be  idiotic  were  it  not  so 
laughable;  but  poor  Sir  Rutherford  will  serve 
very  well  to  show  how  truly  we  had  sunk  in 
the  middle  of  the  century  into  the  pit  of 
perfect  barbarism.  Later  the  worthy  Eng- 
lishman tells  us  why  the  Japanese  are  so 
inferior  to  Vechte  and  Morel  Ladeuil.  He 
says,  "I  should  say  that  there  was  a  material 
civilization  of  a  high  order  in  which  all  the 
industrial  arts  had  been  brought  to  as  great 
perfection  as  could  well  be  obtainable  with- 
out the  aid  of  steam  power  and  machinery." 

I  have  quoted  thus  at  length  from  the  ad- 
mirable Briton  just  to  show  how  great  are 
our  grounds  for  encouragement  to-day.  Forty 
years  ago  nine  men  out  of  ten  would  have 
agreed  with  him,  to-day  he  would  stand  alone. 
We  know  now  that  steam  power  and  ma- 
[163] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

chinery  destroy  and  not  create  art,  and  this 
is  the  first  battle;  but  there  is  yet  another 
and  a  greater  fight  that  must  be  won  before 
the  way  is  clear  before  us,  and  that  is  the 
fight  against  the  heresy  that  we  can  have  art 
at  any  time  if  we  are  willing  to  pay  for  it,  in 
other  words,  that  art  is  a  commodity,  not  a 
result.  Ten  years  ago  the  Arts  and  Crafts 
movement  began  in  England:  five  years  ago 
its  results  were  the  only  truly  good  industrial 
art  in  the  Western  world.  To-day  the  move- 
ment has  spread  all  over  the  continent  with 
deplorable  results,  and  in  England  itself 
exaggeration,  affectation,  and  artificiality  are 
taking  the  place  of  the  first  true  arts  and 
crafts.  The  Art  Nouveau  of  France  and 
Belgium  is  worse  than  haircloth  and  black 
walnut,  and  Birmingham  is  making  arts 
and  crafts  furniture  by  "steam  power  and 
machinery." 

We  are  building  on  shifting  sands,  we  are 
beginning  at  the  top,  not  the  bottom,  and  we 
[164] 


The  Minor  Arts 

are  playing  with  a  pack  of  cards.  Japan 
teaches  us  one  lesson  besides  that  of  the  in- 
efficiency of  steam  power  as  an  incentive  to 
art,  and  that  lesson  is  that  healthy  living 
and  joyful  labour,  just  economic  conditions, 
good  government,  a  chivalric  mind,  a  fine 
sense  of  honour,  and  a  deep  religious  faith 
must  come  first  as  the  rocky  base  whereon 
we  may  build  our  fabric  of  noble  art. 


[165] 


CHAPTER  VIII 
A   COLOUR  PRINT  OF  YEIZAN 

With  some  thoughts  on  Japanese  painting 


T  is  necessary  to  exercise  the  tmder- 
standing  in  painting,  or,  as  it  were,  to 
carry  the  mind  at  the  point  of  the  brush. 
To  introduce  too  much  is  commonplace, 
and  the  artist  must  exercise  his  judgment 
in  omitting  everything  superfluous  or  detri- 
mental to  the  attainment  of  his  object.  It 
is  the  fault  of  foreign  pictures  that  they 
dive  too  deeply  into  realities  and  preserve 
too  many  details  that  were  better  suppressed. 
Such  works  are  but  as  groups  of  words. 
The  Japanese  picture  should  aspire  to  be  a 
poem  of  form  and  colour."  (From  an  eigh- 
teenth century  Japanese  essay  on  painting). 

"Amongst  pictures  is  a  kind  called  nat- 
uralistic,   in   which   it   is   considered   proper 
that    flowers,    grasses,    fishes,    insects,    etc., 
[166] 


A  Colour  Print  of  Yeizan 

should  bear  exact  resemblance  to  nature. 
This  is  a  special  style  and  must  not  be  de- 
preciated, but  as  its  object  is  merely  to 
show  forms,  neglecting  the  rules  of  art,  it 
is  commonplace  and  without  taste.  In  an- 
cient pictures  the  study  of  the  art  of  out- 
line and  of  the  laws  of  taste  were  respected 
without  attention  to  close  imitation  of  form." 
(Shuzan,  1777.) 

This  is  not  a  masterpiece  by  some  giant 
of  the  fifteenth  century:  it  is  signed  by  no 
Sesshu,  Korin,  or  Motonobu:  it  is  a  cheap 
coloured  print  struck  from  wooden  blocks 
in  the  last  century,  but  it  says  much,  per- 
haps all  we  can  ever  understand,  of  the 
pictorial  art  of  Japan. 

#          4*          #          #          $          4          # 

Art  is  absolute  beauty:  without  this  there 
is  no  art.  It  is  also  much  more,  but  this  is 
the  beginning,  even  if  it  is  not  the  end. 
What  absolute  beauty  is,  Western  philosophy 
does  not  define,  but  sane  civilization  has 
always  recognized  it,  even  if  intellectual 
[167] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

demonstration  has  been  wanting.  Why  one 
line,  or  combination  of  lines,  should  be 
beautiful,  another  repulsive;  why  one  musi- 
cal phrase  should  be  exalting,  another  de- 
basing; why  one  colour  composition  should 
satisfy  absolutely,  another  repel,  —  these  are 
mysteries  not  even  St.  Thomas  Aquinas 
can  solve.  A  Bodenhausen  "Madonna"  and 
a  Japanese  kakimono;  a  march  from  Faust 
and  the  "question  motive"  from  the  Ring 
of  the  Niebelungen;  Bouguereau,  and  Botti- 
celli: antitheses,  yet  why? 

The  philosophy  of  the  East  gives  a  hint: 
absolute  beauty  is  dual  in  its  nature:  mysti- 
cal manifestation,  through  unconscious  but 
inevitable  selection  from  myriad  lives  (for- 
gotten yet  operative),  of  the  failures  that 
were  partial  only,  and  that  therefore  through 
process  of  selection  and  discrimination  be- 
come visible  evidences  of  the  best  thus  far 
achieved.  The  best,  not  of  one  life,  but  of 
millions;  higher,  therefore,  than  the  best  of 
[168] 


A  Colour  Print  of  Yeizan 

one.  Karma,  in  a  way,  yet  a  Karma  that 
is  always  good,  for  it  is  not  humans  alone 
who  weave  this  cord  of  destiny,  but  all 
nature,  animate  or  (as  we  call  it)  inanimate: 
all  mental  and  spiritual  forces,  art  as  much 
as  you  or  I.  Also  is  it,  in  another  aspect, 
mystical  foreknowledge  of  the  final  Abso- 
lute to  which  we  all  are  tending  through 
incarnation  and  reincarnation;  not  only  the 
subliminal  composite  of  the  good  of  all  the 
past,  but  a  leaping  on  by  force  of  achieve- 
ment to  heights  yet  unachieved;  Karma  and 
Beatific  Vision  in  one.  So  beauty  is  some- 
thing that  never  was  in  the  past,  nor  is 
now,  but  shall  be  hereafter,  the  last  resid- 
uum from  the  winnowing  of  experience 
illuminated  by  the  aura  even  of  Nirvana 
itself. 

We  may  or  may  not  accept  the  solution 

of  Eastern  mysticism:  the  fact  remains  that 

beauty,  absolute,  never  was,  and  is  not  now, 

and  is  to  be  found  neither  in  nature  nor  in 

[169] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

life.  If  in  either  of  these  a  thing  is  dis- 
covered which  seems  absolutely  beautiful, 
the  fact  of  discovery  proves  that  it  is  not 
absolute,  but  partial  only,  and  therefore  to 
be  accepted  merely  as  material  from  which 
beauty  by  psychological  or  mystical  processes 
may  be  evolved.  In  other  words,  what  we 
call  nature  is  no  more  perfect  than  man 
himself,  but  is  constantly  developing,  and 
imitation  or  copying  of  nature  is  not  the 
registering  of  beauty,  but  of  the  imperfect. 
Art,  therefore,  being  at  least  the  record  of 
the  search  for  absolute  beauty,  must,  if  it  is 
good,  avoid  the  replication  of  natural  facts, 
since  these  are  in  themselves  beautiful  only 
in  a  transitory  and  ephemeral  way. 

Beauty,  then,  which  we  may  call  the  In- 
timation of  the  Absolute,  is  the  first  requi- 
site of  all  art.  In  this  respect  nine  tenths 
of  all  modern  "art"  fails  completely;  it  is 
imitation,  ingenuity,  photography,  a  record 
of  objective  and  sociological  and  psycholog- 
[170] 


A  Colour  Print  of  Yeizan 

ical  data  —  what  you  will  —  but  it  is  not 
art  in  any  true  and  universal  sense. 

In  the  pictorial  arts  beauty  is  of  many 
kinds:  beauty  of  line,  form,  colour,  light  and 
dark,  space  composition.  You  may  grow 
weary  searching  through  the  Luxembourg, 
or  any  Salon  or  Academy  exhibition  before 
you  find  a  picture  possessing  all,  or  even 
one  of  these  primary  notes  of  true  art:  you 
cannot  take  up  a  common  colour-print  made 
in  Japan  before  1880  that  does  not  show 
them  all. 

Again,  art  is  good  workmanship,  the  per- 
fect adaption  of  means  to  an  end ;  no  boggling 
with  uncertainties,  no  prodigality  of  effort, 
everything  direct,  instantaneous:  such  work- 
manship as  that  of  which  Velasquez  was 
supreme  master,  and  Michelangelo  and  John 
Sargent.  Here  every  Japanese  painter  is 
master.  Note  in  the  print  the  swift,  sure 
lines  of  the  scroll,  the  curves  of  the  sleeves 
of  the  woman's  gown.  The  hand  of  a  Japa- 
[171] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

nese  is  trained  like  the  hand  of  a  clever 
surgeon,  his  eye  like  that  of  a  master  mariner, 
his  brain  answers  as  instantly  and  clearly 
as  that  of  a  great  general. 

Finally,  art  is  the  manifestation  of  the 
tmattained,  the  communication  of  the  in- 
expressible. Without  sacrilege,  we  may  say 
that  it  partakes  of  the  nature  of  a  Sacrament; 
it  is  both  a  symbol  and  a  medium  between 
the  finite,  the  conditioned,  and  the  infinite, 
the  unconditioned.  To  revert  again  to  East- 
ern philosophy,  the  mind,  physical  in  its 
nature,  deals  with  those  things  that  fall 
within  the  span  of  a  single  life,  it  is  built  up 
of  experience,  of  the  happenings  between 
the  cradle  and  the  grave,  it  records  no  more, 
it  can  express  no  more:  it  is  a  physical  func- 
tion and  this  only.  But  in  the  second  place 
there  is  a  superior  mind,  a  sublimated  con- 
sciousness, that  is  the  concatenation  of  myriads 
of  incarnations.  It  is  an  attribute  of  the 
inextinguishable  Karma,  it  is  to  the  physical 
[172] 


A  Colour  Print  of  Yeizan 

mind  what  man  is  to  the  mollusk.  In  it  are 
fixed  to  all  eternity  the  records  of  an  infinite 
past,  the  seeds  of  an  infinite  future.  To  it 
are  added,  life  by  We,  all  that  is  precious 
and  of  moment  in  a  sequence  of  existences. 
It  is  the  source  in  man  of  all  imagination, 
dreams,  and  visions;  of  aspirations  and  ex- 
altations; of  honour,  self-sacrifice,  devotion: 
of  love,  poetry,  and  religion.  We  may,  if 
we  like,  call  it  the  immortal  soul. 

Therefore  it  is  the  essential  element  in 
man.  Art  of  every  kind  is  its  sole  means  of 
expression,  and  while  art  as  art  may  exist 
independently  of  its  function  as  a  mode  of 
super-mundane  expression  and  inter-com- 
munication, it  finds,  nevertheless,  its  highest 
manifestation  in  this  unearthly  and  sym- 
bolical language. 

Man  is  a  plexus  of  aggregated  individuals, 
yet  he  has  two  general  natures  correspond- 
ing to  the  dual  mind;  the  one  that  is  the 
physical  product  of  a  single  existence,  the 
[173] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

other  that  is  the  concentration  of  millions 
thereof.  The  language  of  the  first  is  the 
ordinary  spoken  and  written  language  of  a 
people,  that  of  the  second  is  art. 

What,  it  may  be  said,  has  all  this  tenuous 
theorizing  to  do  with  a  colour-print  by  Yei- 
zan?  We  of  the  West,  who  in  looking  at 
a  picture  search  for  its  qualities  of  truth  to 
facts  as  we  know  them,  —  facts  of  nature, 
facts  of  history;  who  are  taught  that  cor- 
rect anatomy  is  the  first  requisite  in  figure 
drawing,  correct  archeology  in  historical 
work,  correct  delineation  of  character  in  por- 
traiture, —  we,  on  turning  suddenly  to  a 
Japanese  print  or  kakimono,  find  nothing 
of  these  at  first,  and  argue,  therefore,  igno- 
rance on  the  part  of  the  painter.  The 
photograph  and  the  anatomical  chart  being 
our  criteria,  we  find  at  first  nothing  but 
grotesqueness  and  wilful  disregard  of  patent 
facts.  In  other  words,  we  have  Muybridged 
[174] 


A  Colour  Print  of  Yeizan 

our    minds    until    artistic    perception    is    no 
longer  possible. 

For  actually  great  Japanese  painting  pos- 
sesses all  the  elements  named  above;  it  is  in 
a  greater  or  less  degree,  varying  with  the 
painter,  an  approach  to  absolute  beauty,  of 
line  and  line-composition,  of  colour  and 
colour-composition,  of  design  and  of  space- 
composition.  Also,  in  a  greater  or  less  de- 
gree, it  approaches  technical  perfection.  The 
Kano  did  not 

"splash  at  a  ten-league  canvas 
With  brushes  of  comets'  hair," 

but  they  did,  so  far  as  was  possible  to  man, 
achieve  complete  directness,  instantaneous 
certainty.  They  knew  to  an  hair's  breadth 
what  they  were  to  do,  and  exactly  how  they 
were  to  set  about  doing  it.  The  space 
covered  is  comparatively  small,  but  in  the 
sure  spring  and  exact  touching  of  the  goal 
Michelangelo  himself  could  not  better  them. 
[175] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

Finally,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
in  the  highest  reaches  of  art,  in  subtle  re- 
minder and  re-creation  of  the  accumulated 
past  forbidden  to  earthly  memory,  and  in 
the  dim  foreshadowing  of  a  future  equally 
forbidden  to  the  physical  mind,  the  painters 
of  Japan  far  excel  those  of  our  own  race 
whom  we  can  know  and  understand  —  Leo- 
nardo, Giorgione,  Botticelli,  Durer,  Rossetti. 
I  say  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  this,  for 
actually  we  cannot  know,  we  of  the  West  to 
whom  they  of  the  East  are  as  of  another 
planet. 

In  so  far  as  beauty  is  in  itself  a  showing 
forth,  and  an  incentive  to,  mystical  memory 
of  accumulated  experience,  either  of  the 
individual  or  the  race,  Japanese  art  is  opera- 
tive in  our  own  case.  When,  after  long 
study  of  a  picture  or  a  print,  we  begin  to  see 
how  every  line,  every  space,  every  compo- 
sition of  line,  notan,  form,  and  colour  is  in 
itself  beautiful,  then  we  feel  that  unmis- 
[176] 


.v- 


H 

;'* 


. 

Plate    XLII. — A    COLOUR-PRINT    OF    YEIZAN*. 


A  Colour  Print  of  Yeizan 

takable  thrill,  that  wistful  call  from  the 
abyss  of  the  forgotten  that  declares  the  half 
awakening  of  the  mysterious  power,  our- 
selves, yet  more  than  ourselves,  that  hears 
the  cry  of  the  universal  and  answers,  half 
believing  yet  half  afraid. 

But  for  that  other  attribute  of  art,  the 
prophecy  of  the  Beatific  Vision,  here  we  are 
on  different  ground.  Leonardo  we  can  under- 
stand, and  Wagner,  and  Browning.  They 
speak  our  tongue  though  through  different 
arts.  But  the  Japanese  painters  speak  in  a 
language  and  to  a  consciousness  whereof 
we  have  neither  part  nor  parcel.  Therefore, 
we  can  only  assume  and  believe  their  art  to 
be  at  least  equal  to  our  own  in  this  respect; 
the  tangible  proof  is  wanting,  and  must  ever 
remain  so. 

Yet  even  omitting  this,   we  have  enough 

left  on  which  we  may  found  a  judgment  of 

Japanese   pictorial   art.     How   much   of  the 

painting  of  our  own  race  becomes  a  vehicle 

[177] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

rather  than  an  end  in  itself?  Not  one  in 
an  hundred  painters  assumes  the  prophetic 
office,  not  one  in  ten  of  the  pictures  of  those 
that  do  is  in  any  sense  a  revelation:  yet  the 
art  is  good  if  it  is  really  art,  and  to  be  this 
it  must  be  an  expression  of  absolute  beauty, 
and,  if  possible,  a  manifestation  of  masterly 
craft  as  well. 

The  pictorial  art  of  Japan  possesses  these 
two  qualities  in  the  highest  degree.  Pure 
beauty  is  a  prerequisite,  good  workmanship 
an  almost  unfailing  accompaniment.  For 
a  time  there  was  an  attempt  on  the  part  of 
many  to  discriminate  against  Japanese  paint- 
ing as  "decorative"  and  therefore  not  pic- 
torial. This  was  necessary  if  we  were  to 
retain  a  few  shreds  of  admiration  for  the 
vast  mass  of  modern  painting  which  pos- 
sesses no  single  element  of  beauty  and  is  in 
no  sense  "decorative."  It  was  supposed  to 
be  art,  however,  hence  the  discrimination. 
Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  every  great  pic- 
[178] 


A  Colour  Print  of  Yeizan 

ture  of  the  past  has  been  primarily  "decora- 
tive." If  it  had  not  been,  it  could  never 
have  ranked  as  a  great  picture.  Tintoretto's 
"Marriage  of  Bacchus  and  Ariadne,"  Michel- 
angelo's Sistine  ceiling,  Botticelli's  "Spring," 
Titian's  "Sacred  and  Profane  Love,"  Rem- 
brandt's "Night  Watch,"  these  and  an  hun- 
dred other  masterpieces  are  such  because 
they  are  "decorative,"  in  other  words,  are 
masterpieces  of  pure  beauty,  either  of  draw- 
ing, composition,  colour,  or  of  all  of  these 
qualities.  Each  has  many  other  splendid 
attributes,  but  it  is  not  the  anatomical  power 
of  Michelangelo's  bodies,  the  atmosphere  of 
Titian's  golden  dream,  the  vital  charac- 
ter in  Rembrandt's  heads,  nor  yet  his  mas- 
tery of  the  mysteries  of  light,  that  make  the 
pictures  great:  it  is  simply  and  only  that  they 
are  all  manifestations  of  beauty  in  some  of 
its  noblest  modes:  all  things  else  are  but  acts 
of  supererogation,  or  at  best  added  virtues 
that  are  cumulative  in  their  import. 
[179] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

The  beauty  of  a  Kano  Motonobu,  a  Sesshu, 
a  Korin,  is  essentially  the  same,  the  beauty 
in  this  print  of  Utamaro  is  close  kin  to  the 
beauty  in  a  Filippo  Lippi  or  a  Bernardino 
Luini:  the  spacing  of  the  lights  and  darks, 
the  composition,  the  individual  and  com- 
bined lines,  the  sheer  beauty  of  form  in  each 
individual  part,  all  are  infinitely  studied* 
perfectly  competent,  final  as  far  as  they  go. 
A  Giovanni  Bellini  may  appeal  to  us  more, 
and  it  certainly  should,  for  it  is  of  our  own 
race,  but  this  is  an  accident  of  blood  and 
has  no  bearing  on  the  quality  of  the  work 
in  the  abstract. 

Again,  we  stand  in  awe  before  the  tech- 
nique of  Velasquez,  Tintoretto,  Sargent,  and 
well  we  may :  they  are  past  masters  of  painter- 
craft,  but  so  are  the  Japanese;  the  same  test 
that  justifies  them  of  the  West  vindicates 
them  of  the  East:  it  is  one  impulse,  one 
genius,  one  achievement. 

I  am  not  arguing  that  the  arts  of  Japan, 
[180] 


A  Colour  Print  of  Yeizan 

and  the  pictorial  arts  in  particular,  should 
appeal  to  us  as  does  the  art  of  our  own  race: 
the  gulf  between  East  and  West  is  impas- 
sable. The  sculptors  of  Greece,  the  painters 
of  Italy,  the  builders  of  France  and  England, 
were  men  of  our  own  race,  their  history  is 
ours,  their  tongue  our  tongue.  No  other 
art  can  possibly  be  to  us  as  this  which  is 
our  own,  but  if  we  isolate  ourselves  in  our 
Western  insolence,  denying,  for  example, 
the  name  of  art  to  all  pictures  not  painted 
in  oil,  or  tempera,  on  panels  or  canvas,  and 
framed  in  carved  and  gilded  wood,  then  we 
stamp  ourselves  barbarians,  shut  ourselves 
away  from  the  possibility  of  an  esthetic 
experience  not  to  be  found  elsewhere.  Nor 
is  condescending  patronage  a  whit  less  vir- 
tuous. "A  very  high  type  of  artistic  pro- 
duction indeed,  for  an  Asiatic  race."  "Ad- 
mirable decoration,  perhaps  the  very  best, 
but  hardly  what  one  would  call  pictorial,  or 
High  Art."  "Wonderful  artisans  no  doubt, 
[181] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

with  a  marvelous  sense  of  the  decorative, 
but  curiously  limited  in  their  knowledge 
of  anatomy,  modeling,  and  perspective." 
Phrases  such  as  these  are  worse  than  a  frank 
and  brutal  denying  of  the  very  name  of  art 
to  the  work  of  the  painters  of  the  great  Japa- 
nese schools. 

Asiatic  civilization  was  for  some  centuries 
the  highest  to  be  found  on  earth.  There  is 
no  "High  Art"  that  is  not  permanently 
decorative.  If  any  quality  of  anatomy, 
modeling,  or  perspective  has  been  banished 
from  a  Japanese  picture,  it  is  merely  because 
this  quality,  perfectly  well  understood  by 
the  painter,  has  been  deleted  simply  because 
it  was  not  necessary  to  the  attainment  of  the 
end  in  view.  Those  are  the  replies  to  the 
three  strictures  quoted  above. 

Come  back  again  to  the  colour-print  (Plate 
XLII):  what  would  it  have  gained  had 
the  head  been  modeled  like  a  crayon  draw- 
ing from  the  cast;  had  the  bones  declared 
[182] 


A  Colour  Print  of  Yeizan 

themselves  through  the  muscles,  the  muscles 
through  the  gown;  had  the  figure  been  bathed 
in  accidental  lights  and  had  it  stood  before 
us  surrounded  by  atmosphere,  a  wonder  of 
perspective?  Nothing,  so  far  as  pure  beauty 
is  concerned,  for  this  lies  in  its  rhythm  of 
line,  in  its  calm,  clear  spaces,  in  its  juxta- 
position of  lights  and  darks.  The  elements 
it  lacks  may  be  assembled  to  produce  equal 
beauty,  the  point  is  that  they  are  not  the 
only  Divinely  ordained  means  whereby  this 
may  be  attained.  The  East  has  found  others 
of  equal  potency;  the  result,  the  manifesta- 
tion of  absolute  beauty  in  visible  form,  is 
the  same. 

The  object,  then,  of  the  Japanese  painter 
is  the  attainment  of  pure  beauty.  To  him, 
nourished  as  his  fathers  before  him  for  un- 
numbered generations,  on  the  fundamental 
doctrine  that  thought,  will,  desire,  the  uni- 
verse itself,  all  are  illusion,  all  visible  and 
tangible  things  are  no  more  than  the  emana- 
[183] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

tion  of  rudimentary  mind,  therefore  utterly 
imperfect  and  unworthy  of  perpetuation.  He 
does  not  search  far  and  wide  for  a  fairer 
type  of  face  or  form,  a  nobler  natural  pros- 
pect. He  does  not  ransack  his  memory  or 
his  sketch-books  for  notes  of  pose,  gesture, 
accessories:  his  pictures  are  not  built  up 
of  beautiful  elements  gathered  from  many 
sources  and  through  long  periods.  This  is 
the  method  of  the  West,  —  is  now  at  all 
events,  in  the  case  of  such  work  as  possesses 
any  claim  whatever  to  the  qualities  of  true 
art.  Instead  he  takes  any  subject,  however 
outwardly  commonplace,  and  then  applies 
to  it  three  processes:  Selection,  Emphasis, 
Idealization. 

Almost  instinctively  he  chooses  the  essen- 
tial lines,  elements,  and  qualities,  throwing 
all  else  away.  Of  these  he  lays  stress  on 
those  that  play  into  his  hand  for  beauty, 
minimizing  the  others,  and  then,  either,  as 
we  should  say,  by  the  exercise  of  his  infallible 
[184] 


A  Colour  Print  of  Yeizan 

good  taste,  or,  as  he  would  say,  controlled 
by  that  mystical  elder  memory  that  tests  all 
things  by  the  standards  established  through 
myriads  of  forgotten  lives,  he  goes  on  to 
translate  his  chosen  details  into  terms  of  the 
beautiful. 

Here  we  return  to  the  first  proposition  in 
this,  I  fear,  incoherent  essay,  —  that  the 
nature  of  Absolute  Beauty  is  undemonstrable 
outside  the  mazes  of  oriental  psychology  and 
metaphysics.  Yet  whatever  it  is,  the  Japa- 
nese attains  it.  In  painting,  as  in  architec- 
ture and  in  the  earlier  sculpture,  beauty  is 
as  omnipresent  as  it  is  in  the  art  of  Greece 
and  that  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  Europe. 
Yet  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  demonstrate 
this  fact  in  words.  If  any  one  can  show 
clearly  and  scientifically  just  why  St.  Mark's 
is  beautiful,  St.  Peter's  hideous,  he  will  do 
well;  yet  there  is  the  fact,  and  here  is  the 
fact  of  consummate  beauty  in  Japanese 
painting. 

[185] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

And  it  is  this  that  is  all-important.  The 
art  of  Japan  is  the  art  of  pure  beauty.  How 
achieved,  and  why,  are  questions  beside  the 
mark.  We  may  by  careful  study  discern 
wherein  this  beauty  lies;  in  what  kind  of 
lines  and  what  combinations  of  lines;  in 
what  spacing  of  lights  and  darks,  in  what 
systems  of  rhythm,  echo,  and  development, 
in  what  arrangements  and  combinations  of 
colour.  We  may  even  discover  the  under- 
lying laws,  if  they  exist,  but  for  my  own  part, 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  these  laws  can 
never  be  formulated  in  terms  comprehensible 
by  man.  Art  does  not  exist  by  law,  at  all 
events  by  law  man-made  or  uttered  by  man. 
It  is  an  inevitable  result:  if  it  exists,  good; 
if  it  is  absent  no  power  on  earth  aimed  at  its 
direct  creation  will  avail  in  the  smallest 
degree. 

And  here  follows,  as  a  moral,  the  story  of 
the  Chinese  painter,  Wu  tao-tsz. 

[186] 


A  Colour  Print  of  Yeizan 

"Lord,"  said  Wu  tao-tsz,  prostrating  him- 
self, "my  labour  is  at  an  end." 

The  King  regarded  him  with  scant  favour. 
"Behold,"  he  said,  "how  the  curtain  that 
has  hung  before  the  wall  of  my  palace,  hiding 
all  sign  of  your  work,  still  insults  my  vision. 
Will  you  deign  to  remove  it?" 

"Even  so,  Lord,"  and  at  a  touch  the  cur- 
tain sunk  to  the  ground. 

The  King  started,  then  stood  silent  gazing 
on  the  wonder  before  him.  It  seemed  that 
the  wall  of  the  palace  had  melted  away, 
and  in  its  place  was  a  wide  window  giving  on 
a  land  such  as  no  man  in  earthly  life  had 
ever  seen  before.  A  wall  of  pale  jade,  in- 
tricately wrought,  lay  in  front,  pierced  by  a 
gleaming  doorway  of  coral  lacquer  and  closed 
by  gates  of  chiseled  gold.  And  above,  reach- 
ing off  into  limitless  distance,  lay  a  radiant 
country  of  trees  and  flowers,  with  cascades 
of  silver  water,  mountains  of  marvelous 
shapes,  and  clouds  like  visible  dreams. 
[187] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

Temples  of  ivory,  amethyst,  and  gold  flamed 
in  the  amber  air,  and  for  a  moment  the  King 
believed  he  could  hear  faint  chanting  and 
mystical  music,  scent  the  perfumes  of  un- 
known incense  mingling  with  the  odour  of 
rose  gardens  and  jasmine.  Finally  he  spoke. 

;'You  have  done  well,  Wu  tao-tsz,  for  you 
have  painted,  not  this  earth,  but  the  very 
heaven  of  heavens  that  is  the  emanation  of 
the  Lord  Buddha." 

"Not  so,  Lord,"  and  the  painter  pros- 
trated himself  once  more.  "This  that  you 
see,  you  have  seen  before,  but  only  as  you 
have  seen  the  single  dew-drops  which,  gath- 
ered together,  become  the  immeasurable  sea. 
This  is  but  the  veil  of  what  shall  be,  a  poor 
symbol  of  the  smile  of  the  Ineffable  One. 
Beyond  —  " 

He  knelt,   prostrating  himself  now  before 

the   gates.     Then    in    a   breath    they    swung 

open.      Wall,    gates,    portal    dissolved    and 

faded  away  and  for  one  instant  of  time  lay 

[188] 


A  Colour  Print  of  Yeizan 

revealed  a  land  of  such  wonder  and  majesty 
that  the  vision  Wu  tao-tsz  had  wrought 
seemed  but  a  mean  and  sordid  desolation. 
The  King  fell  to  the  ground  covering  his 
face  with  his  sleeve,  but  before  his  eyeballs 
were  seared  by  the  glory  of  the  Utterly  For- 
bidden, he  saw  Wu  tao-tsz  rise  and  pass 
into  the  Vision  of  the  Absolute,  saw  him 
melt  into  the  unspeakable  radiance  of  the 
smile  of  the  Blessed  One. 

When,  after  long  abasement,  he  ventured 
to  raise  his  eyes,  the  gates  were  closed,  nor 
when  he  touched  them  were  they  other  than 
painted  silk. 

And  Wu  tao-tsz  no  man  saw  ever  again 
on  earth. 


[189] 


CHAPTER  IX 
A  NOTE  ON  JAPANESE  SCULPTURE 


OF  all  forms  of  artistic  activity  in  this 
most  artistic  and  active  of  lands,  I 
suppose  sculpture  is  really  the  least  known, 
the  least  considered,  except  in  so  far  as  the 
term  might  be  applied  to  the  work  of  the 
industrial  artists,  the  many  and  nameless 
masters  of  the  minor  arts.  Yet  in  actuality 
the  sculpture  of  Japan,  the  plastic  or  chiseled 
work,  that  is,  which  possesses  the  universal 
elements  of  monumental  art,  is  at  least  as 
noble  and  admirable  and  as  worthy  high 
place  beside  the  achievements  of  Western 
art,  as  are  the  painting  and  the  industrial 
arts  whose  position  is  now  so  nearly  assured. 
We  admit  at  last  that  the  Japanese  schools 
[190] 


Plate  XLIII. — KOREAN  STATUE,  NARA. 


A  Note  on  Japanese  Sculpture 

of  painting  are  worthy  of  equal  honour  with 
those  of  the  Early  Renaissance  in  Europe: 
the  racial  impulse  and  the  religion  were 
different  and  the  results  are  widely  sundered 
in  their  superficial  aspects,  nevertheless  we 
know  now  that  the  supreme  tests  of  great 
painting  may  be  applied  as  safely  to  the 
pictures  of  Cho-densu,  Shubun,  and  Kano 
Motonobu  as  to  those  of  Leonardo,  Botti- 
celli, and  the  Bellini.  We  are  beginning  to 
appreciate  the  fact  that  Japanese  architec- 
ture is  not  a  sport  of  Asiatic  barbarism,  but 
a  style  as  logical,  articulate,  and  highly  de- 
veloped as  those  of  Greece  and  France  and 
England.  Of  the  major  arts  sculpture  alone 
is  left  out  of  the  reckoning.  Mention  the 
word  and  nine  out  of  ten  men  will  think  at 
once  of  the  Dai-butsu  of  Kamakura  and  the 
Ni-o  that  scowl  at  one  from  the  main  gates 
of  the  Buddhist  temples  —  nothing  more. 
Every  one  is  impressed  by  the  sacred  solemnity 
of  the  gray-green  Presence  in  the  Kamakura 
[191] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

valley,  every  one  is  delighted  by  the  grotesque 
violence  and  the  savage  exaggeration  of  the 
Deva  Kings,  but  few  stop  to  analyze  the 
artistic  elements  of  the  great  Buddha,  and 
still  fewer  realize  that  back  of  the  threaten- 
ing wardens  of  the  gates  stretches  a  line  of 
sculptured  masterpieces  reaching  even  to  the 
sixth  century  of  the  Christian  era. 

Nevertheless  this  is  the  case;  some  day  a 
man  will  come  who  will  penetrate  the  dusty 
gloom  of  Horiuji,  Horinji,  Todaiji,  Kofukuji, 
Kofkuji  and  all  the  other  treasure  houses  of 
central  Japan,  dragging  into  the  light  the 
wonderful  examples  of  sculpture  hidden  there, 
search  these  lines  and  masses,  point  out  their 
qualities  of  everlasting  nobility,  and  add  to 
human  knowledge  another  —  indeed  several 
other  —  immortal  schools  of  sculpture. 

For   my   own    part,    I   have   only   peered 

for   a  moment   into   these  forgotten   shrines, 

brushed  a  little  dust  from  odd   statues   here 

and  there,  gathered  —  I  fear  by  stealth  and 

[192] 


Plate  XLIV. — AX  ARM  IDA  OF  THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY. 


A  Note  on  Japanese  Sculpture 

the  doubtfully  justifiable  generosity  of  some 
good  Japanese  friends  —  a  few  poor  and 
faded  photographs  of  two  or  three  out  of 
scores  of  works  of  art  utterly  unknown  ex- 
cept to  Japanese  students. 

The  impression  is  lasting,  however,  and 
prompts  a  few  random  notes,  not  as  a  con- 
tribution to  the  sum  of  knowledge  of  this  so 
little  known  field  of  Japanese  art,  but  only, 
if  it  may  be,  to  pique  the  curiosity  of  others 
and  so  lead  them  to  search  still  further  into 
a  field  that  promises  much. 

Earliest  in  point  of  time  is  a  bronze  figure 
formerly  in  Horiuji  but  now  in  the  Nara 
Museum  (Plate  XLIII).  It  is  of  the  sixth 
century:  pure  Korean,  or,  if  not  that,  then 
the  earliest  of  all  Japanese  work  and  exe- 
cuted under  Korean  orders.  In  any  case, 
it  is  Korean  in  style,  and  absolutely  priceless 
to  any  student  of  the  historical  development 
of  art.  It  is  a  strange,  sexless  figure,  tall 
and  slim,  mysterious  and  baffling  to  a  de- 
[193] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

gree.  The  drapery  is  formalized  and  deco- 
rative, conventionalism  raised  to  the  nth 
power,  but  the  type  and  the  modeling  of 
the  head  and  hands  are  almost  classical. 
The  pose  too,  while  reserved  and  formal, 
has  yet  a  certain  suave  grace  that  is  most 
appealing.  There  are  an  hundred  reasons 
why  this  Korean  figure  is  absolutely  in- 
valuable. Not  only  is  it  a  fine  type  of  pure 
and  law-abiding  sculpture,  full  of  beauty 
and  spiritual  calm,  but  it  is  a  priceless  ex- 
ample of  that  amazing  Asiatic  modification 
of  an  Hellenic  norm  which  proves  a  rami- 
fication of  classic  influence,  a  persistent  sur- 
vival of  the  Greek  idea,  in  lands  and  among 
people  severed  from  the  primal  source  by 
almost  the  whole  diameter  of  being. 

The  influence  of  Athens  on  the  art  of 
Asia  was  as  great  as  in  the  case  of  Medieval 
Europe,  and  the  man  who  will  undertake  to 
trace  the  devious  course  of  this  influence 
from  Hellas  across  the  whole  width  of  Asia 
[194] 


Plate  XLV. — A  SEVENTH-CENTURY  BHODISATWA. 


A  Note  on  Japanese  Sculpture 

will  have  a  new  field  full  of  great  possi- 
bilities. He  will  also  have  the  certainty  of 
a  tedious  task,  for  of  the  myriad  connect- 
ing links  between  Phidias  and  Tori  Busshi 
nearly  all  have  perished.  Persia,  India, 
China,  and  Korea  have  been  swept  clean 
of  artistic  records,  and  if  we  may  judge 
from  this  single  statue  in  Nara  the  loss  is 
irreparable.  What  must  have  been  the  art 
of  China,  for  example,  during  the  first  cen- 
turies of  the  Christian  era,  if  a  thing  like  this 
came  to  a  mission  station  in  a  comparatively 
barbarous  land  from  a  country  that  was  not 
the  source  of  civilization,  but  only  a  recent 
triumph  of  missionary  enterprise  on  the  part 
of  China  herself,  the  great  mother  of  civiliza- 
tions ? 

Again  in  this  work  we  see  the  models  on 
which  Japan  was  to  build  her  art  of  national 
scuplture,  as  in  the  monastery  of  Horiuji  we 
see  the  prototype  of  her  architecture.  This 
sixth-century  work  in  and  around  Nara  is 
[195] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

the  beginning  of  the  art  of  Japan,  and  its 
value  is  correspondingly  great. 

A  century  later  Tori  Busshi  begins  the 
great  line  of  Japanese  sculptors,  though 
himself  of  Chinese  descent  and  Chinese  or 
Korean  training.  In  his  work  and  that  of 
his  seventh -century  school,  we  find  exactly 
what  we  should  have  expected:  conven- 
tionalism, or  rather  formalism,  carried  into 
every  part  of  the  work,  into  the  body  as  well 
as  into  the  vesture ;  at  the  same  time  an  access 
of  decorative  quality  in  line  and  mass.  Ex- 
cept in  the  exquisite  formalism  of  the  drap- 
ery little  classical  feeling  remains,  and  even 
its  vestiges  have  taken  on  a  cast  as  Oriental 
as  the  faces  and  figures.  As  studies  of 
line,  pure  and  consummate,  I  know  few 
things  in  sculpture  more  nearly  ultimate 
than  these  seventh-century  statues  of  Horiuji 
and  Yakushiji.  (Plates  XLIV  and  XLV). 

With  the  eighth  century  we  come  at  a 
bound  into  an  era  of  Japanese  sculpture, 
[196] 


> 


A  Note  on  Japanese  Sculpture 

national,  ethnic,  perfectly  developed.  The 
first  formalism  has  worked  itself  out,  tra- 
ditions have  been  discounted  so  far  as  their 
accidents  are  concerned.  Japan  has  found 
herself  and  announces  that  fact  in  perfectly 
audible  phrases.  In  religious  sculpture  these 
traditions  still  persist,  the  composition  and 
the  lines  of  the  drapery  hark  back  to  the 
early  Korean  or  rather  Asiatic  mode,  the 
faces  have  stupefied  into  conventional  ex- 
pressionlessness :  dogma  is  steadily  conserv- 
ative. On  the  other  hand,  even  in  official 
sculpture,  here  and  there  the  bonds  are 
breaking,  a  certain  realism  is  creeping  into 
the  poses  and  the  details,  while  now  and 
again  in  the  faces,  character,  typical  and  un- 
mistakable, begins  to  show  itself.  More  or 
less  portrait  statues  begin  to  appear  in  the 
shape  of  apotheosized  warriors  and  incar- 
nations of  heroism  and  force,  and  here  we 
come  at  once  into  a  full-fledged  school  of 
vital  sculpture.  Figures  such  as  those  in 
[197] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

Plate  XL VI  are  the  very  embodiment  of 
force,  with  power  and  ability  in  every  line. 
Consider  the  poise  and  dash  of  such  a  splen- 
did, sinewy  thing  as  the  Incarnation  of 
War,  the  spring  and  sweep  of  the  body,  the 
tensity  of  nerve,  the  howling  savagery  of  the 
distorted  face  conventionalized  like  a  Greek 
mask;  or  again,  the  rigid  alertness,  the 
power,  concentrated  and  controlled,  in  Plate 
XL VIII.  In  all  of  these  the  bodies  are 
fully  articulated,  the  faces,  particularly  the 
last,  unmistakably  portraits,  yet  portraits 
that  are  more  than  the  effigies  of  individuals, 
they  are  amalgamations  of  a  race,  manifesta- 
tions of  national  character.  Note  also  the 
superb  armour,  almost  classical  in  its  lines, 
without  fantasticism  or  exaggeration,  clean- 
cut,  splendid  in  line,  noble  in  its  surface. 
These  are  great  statues,  all  of  them,  works  of 
the  highest  art:  nothing  better  was  ever  pro- 
duced in  Europe  after  the  fall  of  Rome. 
Plate  XL VIII  a,  also,  is  a  wonder  of  por- 
[198] 


Plate  XLVII. — THE  INCARNATION  OF  POWER. 


A  Note  on  Japanese  Sculpture 

traiture,  indeed  I  doubt  if  anything  more 
full  of  individuality  and  character  has  ever 
been  wrought  than  these  last  two  heads  of 
the  eighth  century  in  Japan. 

All  the  work  thus  far  considered  has  been 
of  the  Nara  period;  of  the  Kyoto  period, 
which  covered  the  next  four  centuries  until 
1192,  I  have  been  able  to  obtain  no  photo- 
graphs of  the  work  of  the  earlier  years,  but 
of  the  tenth  century  we  have  such  keenly 
characteristic  work  as  the  two  portrait  studies 
in  Plates  XL VIII  b  and  XLIXa;  one  of  a 
Buddhist  priest,  the  other  of  a  young  daimyo. 
In  these  we  find  the  same  intensity  of  per- 
sonality, together  with  a  progressive  develop- 
ment of  Japanese  qualities,  both  racial  and 
artistic.  The  little  noble  in  particular  is  a 
perfect  masterpiece  of  sculpture,  intimate 
in  character,  real  to  a  degree,  both  in  type 
and  detail,  decorative  in  its  arrangement  of 
line  and  the  minutiae  of  its  modeling.  The 
old  priest,  also  (Plate  L  a,)  which  is  of  the 
[199] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

eleventh  century,  is  inimitable.  Realism  is 
rampant,  both  in  the  closely  modeled  head 
and  hands,  and  in  the  minutely  studied 
drapery,  but  note  that  this  realism,  unlike 
that  of  the  present  day,  sacrificed  nothing 
of  the  general  to  the  particular;  the  statue  is 
an  eternal  type,  not  an  evanescent  photo- 
graph, yet  a  portrait  withal,  intimate  and 
intense. 

In  the  Kamakura  period,  that  is,  the 
thirteenth  century,  all  schools  seem  to  meet 
and  yet  preserve  their  identity.  We  have 
the  hieratic  type  represented  in  Plate  XLIX  b 
and  in  the  supreme  wonder  of  the  Dai- 
butsu;  the  school  of  force  and  action  shown 
in  the  two  Ni-o  from  Kofkuji  (Plate  LI); 
finally  the  school  of  portraiture,  an  example 
of  which  may  be  seen  in  the  study  of  a  priest 
by  Unkei  (Plate  L6). 

This  last  is  just  as  notable  in  its  closeness 
to  nature  as  the  work  of  the  Kyoto  period, 
and  higher  praise  cannot  be  given.  I  think 
[20011 


A  Note  on  Japanese  Sculpture 

the  two  Ni-o  are  simply  the  most  marvelous 
examples  of  power,  action,  and  Me  mani- 
fested without  the  smallest  sacrifice  of  sculp- 
turesque quality  I  have  ever  seen.  Anatomi- 
cally they  are  marvels  and  show  a  closeness 
of  observation  and  a  power  of  selection  of 
significant  details  that  are  amazing.  And 
what  could  be  better  than  the  sweep  and 
rush  of  the  drapery,  what  more  perfectly 
rhythmic  and  decorative  than  the  composi- 
tion and  drawing  of  the  component  folds: 
this  is  art,  and  art  of  the  highest. 

In  a  way,  however,  it  is  in  the  hieratic 
manifestations  of  religious  faith,  in  such  con- 
summate triumphs  as  the  great  Buddha  of 
Kamakura  (see  Frontispiece),  that  this  period, 
if  not  all  Japanese  sculpture,  reaches  its 
culmination.  Vast  as  the  statue  is,  no  less 
than  fifty-two  feet  high,  every  detail  except 
such  as  are  absolutely  necessary  is  eliminated, 
and  the  result  is  the  triumphant  apotheosis 
of  the  abstract  and  the  universal.  As  one 
[201] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

comes  suddenly  before  this  vision  of  brood- 
ing calm,  shrined  in  the  green  calyx  of  the 
everlasting  hills,  the  impression  is  almost 
overpowering.  It  is  a  lesson  in  the  perfect 
adequacy  of  simple  means  to  the  greatest  of 
all  ends,  a  final  proof  that  Japanese  sculp- 
ture is  a  component  part  of  the  greatest  sculp- 
ture of  the  world,  a  vindication  of  the  claim 
that  may  be  made  for  the  nameless  statuaries 
of  Nippon  to  stand  with  those  others,  who 
in  Europe  wrought  such  masterpieces  as  the 
Victory  of  Samothrace,  the  King  Arthur  of 
Insbruck,  the  St.  Mary  of  Notre  Dame. 

Long  before  the  Pisani  began  chiseling 
out  the  restoration  of  sculpture  in  Italy, 
back  farther  before  the  unknown  artist 
wrought  his  wonder  of  Our  Lady  of  Paris, 
farther  still,  even  before,  and  centuries  be- 
fore, the  Englishman,  the  first  of  all  the  way- 
breakers  of  sculpture  in  Europe,  drew  from 
his  innermost  consciousness  the  beautiful 
beginnings  of  art  so  long  forgotten  it  was 
[202] 


PL, 


A  Note  on  Japanese  Sculpture 

really  new,  the  Japanese,  trained  by  their 
Korean  leaders  and  driven  by  the  vitalizing 
spirit  of  Buddhism  enlivening  the  embers 
of  an  immemorial  ethnic  religion,  were  build- 
ing of  themselves  a  school  of  sculpture  from 
which  no  element  of  greatness  was  lacking. 
Enough  remains  to  make  possible  a  recon- 
struction of  the  whole  wonderful  period 
from  the  founding  of  Horiuji,  to  the  fall  of 
Kamakura,  eight  centuries  of  progressive 
greatness.  A  virgin  field,  clamorous  for  the 
student  and  the  constructive  critic.  May  his 
advent  be  no  longer  delayed. 


[203] 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  FUTURE  OF  JAPANESE  ART 


WITH  the  close  of  the  nineteenth 
century  art  as  a  vital  thing,  a  racial 
attribute,  came  to  its  end  in  Japan.  For  thir- 
teen hundred  years  it  had  been  an  essential 
part  of  a  varied  but  unbroken  civilization. 
All  true  art,  all  art,  that  is,  which  is  more  than 
sporadic  and  episodical,  is  a  component  part 
of  the  culture  of  a  race.  It  cannot  be  cre- 
ated, it  is  doubtful  even  if  it  may  be  fostered, 
consciously  at  any  rate.  It  is  a  sign  of  whole- 
some life,  of  the  acceptance  of  high  ideals, 
and  of  an  honest  effort,  whether  successful  or 
not,  at  putting  them  into  practise.  It  has 
never  existed  without  religion  of  some  sort  as 
its  supreme  impulse  and  its  ultimate  goal. 
[204] 


The  Future  of  Japanese  Art 

The  art  of  Japan,  like  the  art  of  Hellenism 
and  of  Medieval  Christianity,  was  the  natural 
and  inevitable  expression  of  this  plexus  of 
conditions  and  tendencies.  It  was  one  of 
the  first  fruits  of  the  Buddhist  mission  of  the 
sixth  century,  and  as  that  mission  within 
two  hundred  years  fixed  a  permanent  type 
of  lofty  civilization  in  Japan,  so  did  art 
follow  step  by  step.  For  another  thousand 
years  this  civilization  continued  through  many 
vicissitudes,  though  never  lapsing  into,  or 
even  tending  towards,  barbarism.  The  art 
history  was  identical,  the  modes  of  its  mani- 
festation were  various:  now  architecture,  now 
painting,  then  literature,  sculpture,  the  drama, 
or  again  the  industrial  arts.  Note,  however, 
that  nothing  intrinsically  bad  was  ever  done, 
all  was  good,  better,  or  best. 

The  religious  inspiration  of  Buddhism  and 

the  overmastering  loyalty  of  Shinto  fixed  a 

type    of    character,   chivalrous,    honourable, 

self-sacrificing,    that    has    persisted    without 

[205] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

visible  weakening  or  failure  until  this  day. 
The  same  impulses,  or  the  racial  character 
they  created,  established  a  standard  of  art 
and  gave  the  power  of  production,  that  con- 
tinued also  without  lapse  or  halting,  —  not 
until  this  day,  but  until  within  the  memory 
of  men  still  young.  Japanese  character  is 
one  of  the  very  great  forces  in  contemporary 
world-civilization:  Japanese  art,  the  intimate 
and  exact  expression  thereof,  has  ceased. 
The  motive  continues;  the  noble  qualities 
that  are  clamorous  for  voicing  are  growing 
even  nobler,  if  that  were  possible,  but  their 
great  artistic  exponent  is  a  thing  of  the  past. 
The  last  great  racial  art  has  perished  from 
the  earth;  the  chapter  is  closed. 

But  is  the  chapter  closed?  So  far  as  we 
can  see,  yes;  inexorably:  but  if  so  it  is  a 
catastrophe  compared  with  which  the  de- 
struction of  the  Alexandrian  libraries,  the 
coming  of  the  Goths  and  Vandals,  the  sup- 
pression of  the  English  monasteries,  were 
[206] 


The  Future  of  Japanese  Art 

but  unimportant  episodes.  From  the  be- 
ginning of  the  sixteenth  century  in  Europe, 
art  as  a  mode  of  civilization  has  been  sink- 
ing lower  and  lower  by  successive  stages, 
reaching  about  1850  the  lowest  point  recorded 
in  history.  Since  then,  while  there  have 
been  fitful  and  sporadic  instances  of  splendid 
recovery,  they  have  been  personal  only,  never 
racial  (unless  we  except  music  amongst  Teu- 
tonic peoples),  and  the  communal  nature  of 
art,  the  only  sense  in  which  it  is  of  pro- 
found importance,  was  farther  from  the 
possibility  of  restoration  than  ever  before. 

In  Japan,  however,  communal  art,  the 
art  which  is  the  heritage  of  all  the  people, 
and  is  their  highest  mode  of  self-expression, 
had  continued  unmitigated  and  undefiled 
almost  a  century  and  a  half  after  it  had 
become  extinct  in  Europe  and  America. 
Fifty  years  ago,  when  we  were  prostrate  in 
unexampled  artistic  barbarism,  Japan  was 
still  artistically  intact:  her  civilization  was 
[207] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

therefore  complete  and  well  rounded  and 
might  still  serve  as  the  cherished  flame  for 
the  rekindling  of  the  dead  fires  of  the  West. 

No  one  can  say  this  now.  In  three  cen- 
turies we  have  sold  our  birthright  for  a  mess 
of  pottage.  Japan  bartered  hers  in  less 
than  forty  years. 

Yet  again,  and  because  of  the  terrible 
significance  of  the  fact,  we  must  ask,  is  the 
chapter  closed  forever?  So  far  as  we  can 
see,  yes:  inexorably.  Architecture  has  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  tenth-rate  German  bunglers 
and  their  native  imitators,  who  copy  so 
cleverly  that  their  productions  are  almost 
as  bad  as  those  of  their  teachers.  Painting 
is  now  running  in  European  lines;  students 
devote  themselves  to  studies  from  the  cast, 
the  nude,  and  still  life,  ultimately  learning  to 
turn  out  exceedingly  clever  imitations  in  oil 
and  water  colours,  which  would  be  credit- 
able as  exhibits  in  the  Royal  Academy  and 
the  Salon.  Sculpture  is  now  purely  imita- 
[208] 


The  Future  of  Japanese  Art 

live  and  valuable  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  forger.  The  industrial  arts  are  prosti- 
tuted to  the  most  pitiful  ends,  and  the  cloi- 
sonne, lacquer,  porcelain,  and  embroideries 
that  now  flood  the  auction  rooms  of  the 
West  are  valuable  only  in  their  dexterity, 
and  as  showing  how  keenly  and  quickly  a 
crafty  people  can  grasp  and  adapt  itself  to 
the  demands  of  artistic  savagery.  The  love- 
liest landscape  God  ever  created  is  made 
horrible  by  rank  on  rank  of  ghastly  and 
insolent  signs  that  would  raise  a  howl  even 
in  the  Midland  counties  of  England,  and  the 
bare  reaches  of  Connecticut  and  New  Jersey. 
"Marching  through  Georgia"  has  become  a 
musical  favourite  with  the  people,  our  plays 
are  being  translated  into  Japanese,  and  the 
national  costume,  beautiful,  economical,  per- 
fectly adapted  to  racial  type  and  climatic 
conditions,  is  being  discarded  for  trousers, 
dress  skirts,  picture  hats,  aniline  coloured 
fabrics,  and  derbies. 

[209] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

Is  the  chapter  closed?  Yes,  so  far  as  we 
can  see,  inexorably.  And  yet  a  hope  remains, 
for  this  extraordinary  cataclysm  has  not 
carried  with  it  the  corresponding  crash  of 
ethical  and  spiritual  standards.  If  we  found 
the  government  of  Japan  honeycombed  with 
venality  and  graft;  if  its  industrial  system 
had  become  an  organized  oligarchy  of  in- 
timidation and  spoliation;  if  the  trust  and 
corporation  were  supreme  and  implacable, 
yet  accepted  by  the  public  with  a  grin  half 
of  envious  admiration,  half  of  careless  in- 
difference; if  the  sanctity  of  domestic  life 
had  crumbled  away  in  corruption;  if  un- 
earthly superstitions  were  doing  duty  as 
religious  convictions  and  each  was  finding 
hordes  of  dupes,  ready  for  the  bleeding;  if 
war  brought  protests  from  high  finance  and 
vested  interests  because  their  pockets  were 
touched  by  the  blow  in  self-defence,  whilst 
the  ranks  of  the  armies  could  only  be  filled 
by  conscription  and  refilled  on  account  of 
[210] 


The  Future  of  Japanese  Art 

desertions,  —  if  these  were  the  accompani- 
ments of  the  death  of  art,  then  indeed 
we  might  say  with  truth,  the  chapter  is 
closed. 

These  things  we  have  not  found,  nor  any 
one  of  them,  therefore  we  are  permitted  to 
hope;  for  the  extinction  of  art  in  Japan  is 
the  result  of  other  causes  than  the  collapse 
of  racial  character.  There  is  no  canker  that 
has  eaten  the  heart  out  of  Japanese  civi- 
lization, making  art  no  longer  a  possibility :  it 
is  just  as  sound  and  wholesome  and  honour- 
able and  true  as  it  was  a  century  ago.  If 
art  is  a  result,  not  a  product,  then  the  gen- 
erative conditions  are  just  as  vital  as  they 
were  under  the  Ashikaga  or  Tokugawa  Sho- 
guns.  For  once  art  may  occur  again  as  the 
result  of  conscious  volition;  the  question  is, 
will  it  have  the  chance,  may  we  expect  this 
as  one  of  the  fruits  of  victory? 

It  is  possible :  more  than  this,  of  course,  no 
one  can  say,  but  Japanese  character,  as  it 
[2111 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

is  discovering  itself  to  us,  makes  the  thing 
conceivable. 

When  the  ports  were  opened  a  curious 
situation  developed:  two  civilizations  con- 
fronted each  other,  of  equal  antiquity,  yet 
utterly  diverse.  To  the  East  the  West  was 
barbarism,  and  vice  versa.  The  latter  was 
contemporary,  therefore  immeasurably  the 
stronger.  The  former  was  perfectly  con- 
scious of  its  own  superiority  in  many  things, 
but  it  found  itself  absolutely  unable  to  meet 
its  giant  tyrant  on  anything  approaching 
equal  terms.  The  languages  were  different, 
therefore  the  weaker,  the  cloistered  recluse, 
set  himself  to  master  the  tongue  of  the  power- 
ful spoiler.  Since  the  day  of  the  —  by 
courtesy  called  "Battle"  —  of  Shimonoseki, 
one  object  has  been  before  the  Japanese  as 
the  goal  of  every  thought  and  every  act:  to 
meet  the  West  on  its  own  field  and  win 
recognition  for  themselves  as  one  of  the 
Great  Peoples  and  one  of  the  Great  Powers. 
[212] 


Plate  LIT. — A  VISION  OF  FUJIYAMA. 


The  Future  of  Japanese  Art 

Pride,  national  self-respect,  is  the  heritage 
of  every  Japanese:  this  people  was  deter- 
mined to  prove  its  equality  with  any  people 
of  the  West.  It  has  achieved  its  object  in 
less  than  half  a  century,  and  by  so  doing 
written  in  history  one  of  the  most  amazing 
and  romantic  records  of  all  time.  The 
method  adopted  was  far  different  to  that  in 
vogue  in  the  West.  No  effort  was  made  to 
crush  the  fact  down  the  throats  of  the  scoffers : 
this  would  have  resulted  simply  in  extinc- 
tion. Instead,  and  the  story  is  too  well 
known  to  need  detailed  repetition,  Japan 
quietly  assimilated  every  quality  of  the  West, 
except  its  religion  and  its  political  corrup- 
tion; no  task  was  too  great;  first  failure  only 
meant  second  attempt  and  victory.  One  by 
one  all  the  methods,  and  some  of  the  manners, 
of  nineteenth-century  Europe  and  America 
were  taken  over,  assimilated,  and  made  a 
part  of  what  may  be  called  exoteric  Japan. 

Everything  but  the  fundamental  princi- 
[213] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

pies  of  the  race  was  discarded,  and  even 
those  were  sometimes  masked  and  hidden 
away.  Finally  the  monstrous  treaties  were 
revised  and  the  first  victory  was  won.  The 
war  with  China  promised  a  second  victory, 
recognition  as  an  equal,  the  end  and  aim  of 
it  all,  but,  at  the  very  moment  of  final  achieve- 
ment, three  nations  leagued  themselves  in  a 
shameful  bond,  not  only  to  rob  the  victor 
of  the  signs  of  victory,  —  that  were  a  small 
matter,  —  but  to  humiliate  a  triumphant  na- 
tion and  deny  to  her  once  more  admission 
amongst  those  who  thus  proved,  not  that 
Japan  was  their  inferior,  but  that  she  was 
what  she  had  never  claimed,  immeasurably 
their  superior. 

The  fact  was  clear  to  all  but  Russia,  Ger- 
many, and  France,  but  sentimental  recogni- 
tion was  not  enough,  so  Japan  set  her  teeth 
and  went  to  work  again.  For  ten  years 
she  prepared  to  fight  Russia,  just  that  and 
nothing  more.  We  knew  this  in  Japan 
[214] 


The  Future  of  Japanese  Art 

eight  years  ago,  but  in  the  West  no  one 
really  thought  this  supposedly  "little  country" 
could  dare  such  a  thing.  Well,  the  truth 
is  sufficiently  evident  now,  and  if  defeat 
should  happen  to  follow  again,  unless  the 
race  were  utterly  exterminated  preparations 
would  continue  for  twenty  years,  or  a  cen- 
tury. In  the  end  one  result  only  is  possible. 

The  great  contest  may  end  in  final  victory 
to-day  or  to-morrow.  If  so,  if  Japan  at  last 
steps  forward,  one  of  the  great  civilized 
Powers  of  the  earth,  recognized  as  such  by 
all  the  world,  what  will  be  the  result  ?  Many 
things  in  which  no  man  could  avow  his  faith 
and  escape  the  stigma  of  insanity;  but  there 
is  one  that  may  develop  and  this  may  be 
said  fearlessly,  and  that  is  the  absolute 
sloughing  off  of  the  absurd  habiliments  of 
Western  and  Westernized  art,  and  the  re- 
birth of  the  art  of  Japan  in  all  its  original 
splendour. 

As  I  have  said  above,  if  the  outward  trans- 
[215] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

formation  of  Japan  had  involved  the  de- 
struction of  character,  the  loss  of  ideals, 
this  could  not  be  said,  but  Japanese  charac- 
ter is  intact.  It  has  been  overlaid  by  many 
thicknesses  of  strange  vesture,  but  these 
may  prove  only  defensive  armour,  protecting 
the  wearer  from  the  blows  of  a  novel  and 
unfamiliar  assailant.  Commercial  trickery, 
political  liberalism,  free  thought,  and  atheism, 
these  are  evils  that  exist,  and  there  are  many 
others;  but  it  is  well  within  the  range  of 
possibility  that  all  may  prove  merely  tem- 
porary expedients,  since  they  are  not  natural 
evolutions  from  the  psychological  history  of 
the  people,  but  have  been  assumed  arbitrarily, 
and,  unless  they  have  instilled  a  fatal  virus 
into  the  social  organism,  an  assumption  for 
which  there  is  no  justification  in  fact  thus 
far,  may  be  as  arbitrarily  cast  aside. 

The    politician    who    argues    of    "natural 
rights,"    the    slender    aristocrat    who    wears 
tan  shoes  and  a  derby  hat,  the  shop-keeper 
[216] 


The  Future  of  Japanese  Art 

who  cheats  one  smilingly  and  with  exquisite 
taste,  the  geisha  who  demands  champagne 
rather  than  sake,  the  peasant  woman  who 
clothes  her  child  in  a  knitted  woolen  jacket 
made  in  America  and  dyed  a  poisonous 
magenta  with  aniline  dyes,  the  soshi  who 
spits  contemptuously  as  you  pass  by  —  all 
these  are  of  one  ilk,  they  are  all  varied  mani- 
festations of  a  national  movement  for  national 
recognition.  They  may  go  no  deeper  than 
this:  to  those  who  know  the  first  rudiments 
of  Japanese  character  —  and  few  can  know 
more  —  it  is  perfectly  conceivable  that  every 
itemized  Westernizer  in  the  nation  is  secretly 
scornful  of  the  things  he  outwardly  glories 
in,  and  laughing  meanwhile  within  himself 
at  the  credulity  of  the  innocent  foreigners 
who  do  not  see  that  it  is  all  no  more  than 
a  rather  unsavoury,  but  also  indispensable, 
means  to  an  end. 

Japan  has  borrowed  much  from  the  West 
that  she  well  never  throw  away,  but  these 
[217] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

are  the  solid  materialities:  steam  and  elec- 
tricity and  industrial  machinery;  medicine, 
surgery,  sanitary  systems;  the  organization, 
maintenance,  and  utilization  of  an  army  and 
navy.  Civilization  of  a  noble  type  is  more 
nearly  possible  with  than  without  these, 
therefore  Japan  has  made  them  her  own 
and  established  her  title  through  a  better 
use  of  them  than  was  made  by  those  who 
brought  them  into  being. 

But  the  waste  and  slag  and  refuse  of 
scientific  and  industrial  civilization,  the  nox- 
ious emanations  of  our  great  seething  ferment 
of  life,  these  are  of  no  use  to  Japan  when  her 
victory  is  won,  and  these  —  the  hope  shines 
out  again  —  may  go. 

We  have  destroyed  three  fourths  of  the 
valuable  things  of  life  through  misusing  the 
mighty  engines  we  have  fashioned,  now  these 
marvelous  creations  fall  into  new  hands: 
is  it  madness  to  believe  that  in  Japan  may 
be  solved  the  problems  of  making  science 
[218] 


The  Future  of  Japanese  Art 

and  industrialism  minister  to  the  noblest 
ideals,  not  to  the  meanest;  create  beauty  of 
thought  and  life  and  conduct  instead  of 
working  against  it? 

I  believe  that  the  morrow  of  victory  will 
show  the  beginning  of  a  new  dispensation. 
Nothing  of  Westernism  that  is  fundamentally 
good  will  be  discarded,  but  instead  there 
will  be  a  swift  and  startling  recrudescence 
of  nationality,  of  "Yamato  Damashii,"  test- 
ing every  new  thing,  not  by  the  measure  of 
opportunism,  but  by  the  standards  of  sound, 
religious,  and  beautiful  civilization.  Japan 
is  effectually  disguised,  but  Japan  is  there, 
underneath,  and  in  due  time  the  disguise 
will  be  thrown  off.  When  this  day  comes, 
there  will  occur  certain  changes  that  will 
be  very  shocking  to  our  sensibilities,  for  a 
time  at  least.  Many  of  them  will  be  radical 
and  superficially  reactionary;  they  will  appear 
in  the  laws  and  the  Fundamental  Law,  in 
education,  in  commerce,  in  manufacture. 
[219] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

Japan  will  say  to  the  Powers  of  the  West, 
"Gentlemen,  I  thank  you;  you  have  forged 
for  me  the  weapons  with  which  I  have  justi- 
fied my  claim  to  be  considered  a  great,  civi- 
lized Power.  In  many  ways,  however,  I 
consider  my  own  civilization  as  superior  to 
yours,  and  I  shall  now  revert  to  these  better 
ways,  after  an  experience  which,  if  not  always 
savoury,  has  been  invariably  instructive. 
Though  I  have  already  paid  your  price  (a 
heavy  one)  for  all  you  have  sold  me,  I  have 
no  grounds  for  complaint,  and  you  are 
heartily  welcome  to  learn  of  me  as  I  have 
learned  of  you.  Particularly  shall  I  be  glad 
to  demonstrate  to  you  that  liberty  necessarily 
destroys  neither  manners  nor  laws;  that  the 
whole  is  greater  than  the  part,  and  that 
chivalry  and  self-sacrifice  are  the  founda- 
tions of  the  State  as  well  as  of  society;  that 
beauty,  whether  of  act,  or  custom,  or  costume, 
or  handiwork,  is  a  means  of  discriminating 
between  a  civilized  man  and  a  barbarian. 
[220] 


The  Future  of  Japanese  Art 

Finally,   I  shall  be  glad  to   show  you  that 
knowledge  does  not  destroy  faith." 

Is  the  chapter  closed  ?  Yes,  but  not, 
perhaps,  inexorably.  We  are  dealing  with 
a  non-Aryan  race,  with  a  type  of  mind  of 
which  we  know  almost  nothing,  with  a  civi- 
lization untouched  by  any  of  the  influences 
that  have  molded  our  own;  anything  is 
possible.  At  the  same  time  there  exist  cer- 
tain fundamental  qualities  which  mark  the 
whole  human  race,  while  into  the  considera- 
tion comes  an  immemorial  ancestor  wor- 
ship, reverence  for  the  dead  and  pride  in 
racial  achievements  that  must  influence  very 
radically  every  action  of  the  Japanese  people. 
For  those  reasons,  I  believe  that  racial  in- 
stinct and  moral  conviction  will  result  in  a 
sudden  and  amazing  return  to  all  that  was 
good  in  the  old  Japan,  including,  of  course, 
its  art.  There  are  signs  of  this  even  now. 
The  laws  compelling  the  assumption  of 
European  dress  on  certain  occasions  have 
[221] 


Impressions  of  Japanese  Architecture 

been  greatly  relaxed.  Professor  Okakura  and 
men  of  his  great  stamp  are  fighting  for  the 
conservation  of  national  ideals  in  painting. 
There  is  a  visible  revolt  against  the  shock- 
ing architecture  that  in  the  name  of  Euro- 
peanism  has  defiled  the  land :  in  spite  of  occa- 
sional absurdities  of  fashion  the  drama  and 
music  are  still  comparatively  sound.  A  word 
from  the  right  source,  the  one  supreme 
source,  the  Mikado,  would  send  the  whole 
ridiculous  card  house  of  Western  art  and 
Western  manners  crumbling  into  instantane- 
ous collapse.  Will  the  word  be  spoken?  I 
firmly  believe  so,  for  the  Emperor  Mut- 
suhito  has  shown  himself  always,  not  only  a 
wise  sovereign,  but  the  very  incarnation  of 
the  spirit  of  Japan.  He  knows  even  better 
than  we  of  the  West  how  infinitely  his  coun- 
try and  his  people  will  gain  by  a  dignified 
and  self-respecting  resumption  of  much  that 
for  the  time  has  been  cast  away.  Such  a 
course  would  fix  Japanese  civilization  as  an 


The  Future  of  Japanese  Art 

indestructible  entity  for  another  period,  and 
world  civilization  would  gain  thereby.  Finally, 
it  would  command  the  respect  and  frank 
admiration  of  the  West,  and  no  one  could 
say  again,  "The  Japanese  are  clever,  but 
only  as  imitators." 

When  the  hour  is  ripe,  I  believe  the  word 
will  be  spoken. 


[223] 


INDEX 


Absolute  beauty,  Eastern  solu- 
tion of  mystery  of,  168;  first 
requisite  of  art,  170. 

Architecture     of     Japan,     mis- 

J'udged,  25;  example  of  per- 
ect  development,  27;  one  of 
great  styles  of  the  world,  28; 
Chino-Korean  style  of,  81; 
classical  traces  in,  36;  destruc- 
tion of  early,  39;  becomes 
merged  in  decoration,  52; 
curve  composition  in,  54; 
modern  domestic,  62,  115; 
modern  domestic,  debasement 
of,  63;  critical  estimate  of,  65; 
lessons  to  be  learned  from,  66; 
proportion  in,  66;  simplicity 
in  domestic,  68;  use  of  natural 
woods  in,  69;  sense  of  pro- 
tection in  domestic,  70;  classi- 
cal traces  in,  79;  spiritual  im- 
port in,  83;  primitive  Shinto, 
85;  destruction  of  early,  90; 
perfect  style  in  wood,  117,  118, 

Architectural  styles,  sequence  of, 
East  and  West,  82. 

Art  of  Japan,  fundamentally  one 
with  that  of  Europe,  18;  based 
on  communism  of  her  civiliza- 
tion, 20;  greatest  when  most 
conservative,  21 ;  standards 
established  by,  23;  Western 
discovery  of,  145;  last  to  be 
extinguished,  145;  and  that  of 
Europe  in  the  eighth  century, 
146;  and  that  of  Europe  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  146;  prima- 
rily Chinese,  149;  four  periods 
of,  154 ;  fostering  conditions  of, 


156;  carelessness  a  crime  in, 
159;  ugliness  a  sin  in,  159; 
ludicrous  nineteenth  century 
estimate  of,  162;  lesson  of,  165; 
technical  perfection  of,  171; 
selection,  emphasis,  and  ideali- 
zation in,  184. 

Art,  the  fall  of  Japanese,  208. 

"Arts  and  crafts"  in  Japan,  153. 

Ashikaga,  fall  of  the,  50. 

Ashikaga  period,  46;  artistic 
supremacy  of,  152;  great 
artists  of,  152;  architectural 
style  of,  94. 


B 


Bathrooms  and  baths,  129. 
Buddhism,  incentive  power  of, 

towards    art,    158. 
Buddhist   civilization,    downfall 

of,  101. 


Castle  architecture,  56. 

Castle-keeps,  construction  of, 
61. 

Chigai-dana,  59. 

China,  the  inspiration  of  Japan, 
148;  resumption  of  inter- 
course with,  47. 

Chino-Korean  architecture, 
colour  of,  34;  essential  ele- 
ments in,  84. 

Chino-Korean    style,    78. 

Chion-in,  temple  of,  44,  56. 

Civilization  or  Japan,  80;  artistic 
expression  of,  97. 


225 


226 


Index 


D 

Dai-butsu    of    Kamakura,    the, 

201. 
Decoration,  the  development  of, 

98. 
Dual  mind,  the,  172. 

E 

Empress  Suiko,  reign  of,  30. 
Enryaku  style  of  architecture,  93. 

F 

Feudalism,  architectural  expres- 
sion of,  95;  fosters  industrial 
art,  153. 

Fires  in  Japan,  62. 

Fujiwara  period,  41;  architec- 
ture of,  91;  artistic  eminence 
of,  150;  great  artists  of,  150, 
152. 

Furnishing  of  Japanese  houses, 
120. 

G 

Ginkaku-ji,  palace-pavilion  of, 
50,  92;  gardens  of,  109. 

H 

Higashi  Hongwanji,  Kyoto, 
temple  of,  64;  Nagoya,  temple 
of,  54. 

Hikone  castle,  56,  62. 

Himeiji  castle,  56,  61,  62. 

Hokiji,  pagoda  of,  36. 

Ho-o-do,  palace-temple  of,  26, 
41,  90. 

Horenji,  temple  gardens  of,  105. 

Horiuji,  monastery  of,  described, 
26,  31,  77,  148;  norm  of  all 
Japanese  architecture,  32;  pa- 
goda of,  37;  sculptures  at,  196. 


Inns  and  hotels,  137. 
Iri-kawa,  60,  124. 
Ise,  shrines  of,  85. 
Ishi-yama-dera,  gardens  of,  107. 


Japan,  the  vortex  of  the  East,  22. 

Japanese  and  Greek  art,  parallel- 
ism of,  21. 

Japanese  civilization,  fosters 
every  art,  158;  persistence  of, 
22. 

Jo-dan  and  ge-dan,  59,  124. 


Kakimono,  display  of,  126. 
Kamakura  period,  establishment 

of,    46;    architecture    of,    47; 

sculpture  of,   200. 
Kasuga  temples,  Nara,  94. 
Kinkaku-ji,  palace-pavilion    of, 

50,  92. 

Kofkuji,  sculpture  at,  200. 
Korean  bronze  statue,  Nara,  193. 
Koshoji,  gardens  of,  110. 
Kumamoto  castle,  56,  62. 
Kura,  construction  of,  63. 
Kyoto,  removal  of  court  to,  41; 

palace-pavilions  of,  50,  92. 
Kyoto  period,  sculpture  of,  199. 


M 

Missionaries,  mistakes  of  Protes- 
tant, 89. 
Modern  art,  failure  of,  170. 


N 

Nagoya  castle,  56. 

Nagoya,     Higashi     Hongwanji 

temple  in,  54. 
Nara,  city  of,  in  eighth  century, 

39;  temple  gardens  of,  105. 
Nara  period,  architecture  of,  32; 

sculpture  of,  197. 
Nikko,  shrines  of,  26,  43,  53,  55, 

100. 
Nishi  Hongwanji  temple,  Kyoto, 

56. 

O 

Obaku-san,  temple  of,  48,  53. 


Index 


227 


Painting  in  Japan,  great  period 
of,  97. 

"Phrenix  Hall,"  see  Ho-o-do. 

Plaster,  Japanese  use  of,  119. 

Proportion  in  Japanese  architec- 
ture, 66. 

Provincial  castles  of  Daimyo,  61. 


R 

Residences,  vestibules  of,  123; 
plan  of,  124,  131;  construction 
of,  127;  artistic  refinement  of, 
135;  contrast  between  Japa- 
nese and  Western,  136. 

Rice-paper,  Japanese  use  of, 
119. 

Royal  palaces,  type  of,  60. 

Ryobu-Shinto,  88,  94. 


San-ju-san-gen-do,  temple  of,  91. 

Sculpture  of  Japan,  largely  un- 
known, 191 ;  classical  influence 
on,  194;  Tori  Busshi,  first 
master  of,  196;  portraiture 
appears  in,  197;  grandeur  of 
eighth  century,  198;  during 
Kyoto  period,  199;  during 
Kamakura  period,  200. 

Shiba,  temples  of,  26,  43-55. 

Shjnyakushiji,  temple  of,  40. 

Shinto  architecture,  85,  87. 

Shiogama,  gardens  of,  109. 

Shoji  and  fusuma,  119. 

Shokonsha,  shrine  of,  in  Tokyo, 
56,64. 


Temple  gates,  95. 

Temple  interiors,  splendour  of, 
44,  64,  99. 

Todaiji,  temple  of,  40. 

Tokonoma  and  chigai-dana,  59, 
125. 

Tokugawa  period,  50,  51;  archi- 
tecture of,  27, 43,  92;  feudalism 
during,  51;  Confucian  revival 
during,  51. 

Tori  Busshi    149,  196. 

Torii,  88,  109. 

Toshodaiji,  temple  of,  40. 


U 

Uyeno,  shrines  of,  26,  55. 


W 

Wall-painting,  Indo-Chinese,  at 

Horiuji,  35. 
Western  art,  nineteenth  century 

degradation  of,  161;  extinction 

of,  143,  144. 
Westernism,      Japanese     revolt 

against,   101,   116. 
Wood,  Japanese  reverence  for, 

118. 
Wutao-tsz,  the  legend  of,  187. 


Yakushiji,  pagoda  of,  26,  37,  86, 

196. 
Yashiki,    arrangement    of,    57; 

gates,  57;  plan  of,  57. 


Tea-houses  and  restaurants,  139. 
Temple     architecture,     earliest 
types  of,  32. 


Zen  missions  and   Chinese  in- 
fluence, 47. 

Zen  temples,  described,  48. 
Zojoji,  Tokyo,  temple  of,  56. 


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